


The Rescue Job

by Vicky



Category: Leverage
Genre: Abduction, Angst, Case Fic, F/M, Minor Violence, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 03:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7874233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vicky/pseuds/Vicky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian Blackpoole had abducted Parker, Eliot and Hardison. With Sterling’s help, Nate and Sophie must find a way to rescue them before it’s too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel for the fic I had written for last year's Het Big Bang, [The New Life Job](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4662984/chapters/10639317), so you should read that one first as this fic picked up right where the previous one left off. Many, many thanks to my artist, Cassandra for the artwork she created for the fic!

“Ian.”

Sterling froze upon hearing the name pass Nate’s lips. This didn’t bode well; neither of them had parted with Blackpoole on friendly terms, and with good reasons. Whatever their former boss was calling for, Sterling was sure that they wouldn’t like it.

Nate caught Sterling’s eyes, instructing him to stay silent, before putting his phone on speakers.

“ _Glad to know you still recognize my voice._ ”

“What do you want?” Nate asked, changing the subject; he refused to admit that he tried and failed to forget the man responsible for his son’s death.

“ _How’s New York, Nate? Is it everything you hoped for?_ ”

Those were rhetorical questions, only there to prove to Nate that he knew exactly where he was. For the two friends, there were no doubts that Blackpoole had been the one keeping an eye on Nate and Sophie since their arrival. Probably even before that. It worried Nate to know that they had been under watch and none had been the wiser until Sophie noticed it upon their arrival in New York.

“What do you want?” Nate repeated.

“ _Always straight to the point, Nate, I see. What do_ I _want? You ruined everything. Because of you and your team of thieves, I lost everything. My money, my reputation, everything. Did you think you could get rid of me so easily? Did you really think that I would forget what you did to me?_ "

"What I did to _you_?" Nate replied; even though he knew Blackpoole was just baiting him, he couldn't stop himself from responding. "You let my son _die_ , Ian. My son!"

Sterling gestured for Nate to calm down. They couldn't allow themselves to antagonize their former boss before knowing what he wanted. One thing was for certain, Blackpoole wasn't calling only to chat with Nate. He had an agenda and they needed to find out what it was.

Nate took a deep breath, calming himself. The anger he felt towards Blackpoole was still there, it would always be there, but now, he was back in control.

"Tell me what you want now, Ian, or I'm hanging up."

" _If you do that, you'll condemn them, and you'll never find out what happened to them._ "

That caught Nate and Sterling's attention.

"'Them'? Who are you...?" Nate started before it downed on him exactly who Ian was talking about. Beside him, Sterling came to the same conclusion. "What have you done to them?"

" _Don't worry, they're fine. For now. They're my guests of honour. Whether that changes depends on you, and only you._ "

"What do you want from me?" Nate asked.

" _You took everything from me, I think I'm allowed some mystery for now. But you'll know soon enough. As long as you keep answering your phone, and don't try anything harsh._ "

"How do I know you really have them and it's not just some trick?”

" _Well, check, if you want,_ " Ian replied. " _You'll have ample time for that. I'll call you back soon._ " He marked a pause before saying, " _Oh, and Sterling? How is dear Olivia doing at her private school?_ "

Blackpoole hung up before Sterling could reply anything.

"That bastard!" he exclaimed. "He knew I was there all along."

"He probably has someone watching over us," Nate replied, turning to see if he could notice anyone taking special attention to them, but there was no one in sight.

"He knows about Olivia. I have to get her to safety," Sterling said, taking his cell phone out of his pocket.

"We all have to get somewhere safe," Nate said. "You, me, Sophie and Olivia. We're not safe out there."

"And where do you propose we go to?"

"I have a safe house upstate."

"You've been here less than a week and you already have a safe house?" Sterling said, raising an eyebrow. "Actually, I don't even know why I'm surprised. That must be part of one of your plans."

Nate didn't answer; the truth was, Sterling would be even more surprised if he did. He didn't have any plans. He had stopped making plans once they recovered the Black Book and Sophie had said yes when he proposed to her. Having a safe house ready for them was out of habit.

"We have to go get Sophie. Call whoever you need to call to get to Olivia."

"Nate..."

"I know. Ian is dangerous. He's probably more dangerous than anyone we've ever crossed before."

"Because he has nothing to lose."

"Because he has nothing to lose," Nate repeated.

 

###

 

Sophie didn't know how long they stayed in each other's arms before she pulled away. She looked properly at her younger brother for the first time in two decades. The last time she had seen him, had hold him in her arms, he hadn't even been a teenager yet.

It had been the day she had left; he had begged her not to, but she had tuned out his pleas. When she walked through the door, she hadn't looked back, knowing that it would only serve to weaken her resolve. And she couldn't allow that. She had to go; she had wanted to become an actress and nothing and no one, not even her brother, could have stopped her. But she had never thought she would end up staying away from her family, from him, for so long. Her younger, more foolish, self had thought that it would have only taken a few months before she landed a role in a big production. When she closed the door behind her that day, she had thought that she would soon return, triumphant and having shown them that she had been right all along.

That day had never arrived. Her big break had been nothing but a fantasy. She had made some disreputable acquaintances, and had become a better grifter than she could ever hope to be an actress. Not that she admitted that, even to herself, until recently. Having shed her real identity somewhere along the way, and with the police and insurance investigators – Nate first – looking for her, she had decided that it would be better for her never to go home. She had never made it big like she told them she would, and she hadn’t wanted them to find out about her new self. It wasn’t that she had been ashamed of who she had become – she had loved and still loved the life she was leading, it fulfilled her in ways the theatre life could never have – but she hadn’t wanted to see the disappointment in their eyes. She hadn’t wanted to hear the reproaches in her mother’s voice.

She had still kept an eye on them from afar. She had needed to make sure that they were fine, that they would stay safe, and they wouldn’t become targets because of her. She hadn’t wanted her two lives to collide dramatically.

She had watched her brother grow into the man standing before her now, never noticed. She had been proud of his achievements, and, if she sometimes wished that she could tell him that in person, she had also always thought that he was better off without her and the dangers she would be carrying with her.

When they went to London for their honeymoon, she had taken Nate to her family’s home, thinking that she was finally ready to go back. She was married, she was happy, and she had found her calling as a stage director. She had something to show them for her years of absence. She had truly thought that she could face them. She had been wrong; she hadn’t been able to leave the car, her eyes fixed on the silhouettes moving behind the windows. Nate hadn’t pushed her, he had silently supported her decision to remain in the car and drive away without her family ever knowing that she had been so close.

It had been the right choice, at the time, she knew that, but as she looked at her brother, standing before her now, smiling at her, she couldn’t help but feel that, maybe, she had missed something that day. She decided to push that thought to the back of her mind, and concentrate on the present moment.

She watched her brother, committing every single detail to her memory, just in case she wouldn’t see him again. He had grown into a fine man while she had been away. Of course, she had watched him from afar, searched for pictures of him on the internet, so she had known that, but having him right before her eyes was different. She couldn’t see the spark in his eyes, or the way his smile looked like just their father’s.

Her mind was running with hundreds of questions, but she shut them all out except for one. The most important question.

“How did you find me?” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear; she was afraid that, were she to speak any louder, she would break the moment, and it was the last thing she wanted.

“Quite by chance, actually,” he answered on the same tone. “I saw you on Times Square the other day, and followed you to your hotel. And later, here.”

That explained that Sophie had felt like she was being followed; it had been the case, but it hadn’t been Sterling as she and Nate had deduced after having found the Interpol agent in their hotel room, but her brother.

“I’ve actually never stopped looking for you,” he continued. “I just didn’t have the right name.”

“Paul…” she started, but he held up his hand.

“I know, _Sophie_ , I know,” he said, putting an emphasis on her name. “Everything,” he added, even though it wasn’t necessary.

“You were the one who googled me!” Sophie exclaimed. For a moment, she was relieved that it had been her brother and not someone more dangerous, a previous mark that they had angered, but then, she realised what he had found out. “Paul, I didn’t… I didn’t want you to…”

“Find out that my big sister changed her name and is an art thief?” he said, his voice neutral.

“Ex-art thief,” she said out of habit more than anything.

“You got bored?”

“I found another way to use my gifts,” she replied, mysteriously; she didn’t want to say more, for the moment, she didn’t want to expose him to the dangers of her life.

“Alright.”

Sophie might not have seen her brother for years, but she could still remember all of his tells when he was lying. She couldn’t see any; he could have just become a better liar, but the genuine smile on his face told her that he was sincere. He was accepting her for who she was, now. She felt tears well up in her eyes and, this time, she let them go freely. Paul took her hand in his and squeezed it tightly. He wanted to hug her, but he thought it might just make her cry even harder. If there was one thing he had never been able to withstand, it was his sister crying. He knew these were happy tears, but for him, it was the same; she was crying because of him.

“What about Mum and Aunt Emily? Do they know?”

“No. I didn’t really know what to tell them. ‘Hey, I found my sister, but she calls herself Sophie, now, and she’s not really an actress’,” he said with a smile. “That, and I wasn’t sure you would want me to tell them. It’s not my choice to make.”

“I don’t want them to know,” Sophie replied. “Not yet.”

“But one day…”

“Maybe. I don’t know. It didn’t exactly turn out the way I had thought it would, after all.” She paused, taking a deep breath and drying her tears. “I went by the house, a few weeks ago. I thought I was ready to come back, but I couldn’t even get out of the car.”

“Why? Didn’t you want to see us again?” he tried to keep the hurt out of his voice at this revelation, but she heard it nonetheless.

“I did. I do,” she reassured him. “You don’t know how happy I am to have you here, with me. But what I do, who I am, is so far from who I dreamt to be when I left home. I didn’t want you to find out who I became.”

“Are you ashamed?”

“No!” Sophie exclaimed. “I wasn’t always on the right side of the law, I’m still not most of the time, but this is who I am. It’s what I love.”

“You just don’t know whether Mum and Aunt Emily will accept you.”

“Do you?” she asked; even though she had seen it written on his face, she still needed to hear him say it. “Do you accept me for who I am, now? An ex-art thief and a grifter. And a stage director, too, now,” she said, gesturing to the auditorium they were standing in.

“If you’re happy, it’s only thing that matters to me.” He saw that she still needed to be reassured, so he continued. “I have no right to tell you what life you should led. I may be your brother, but I never was and will never be your keeper. You’ll deck me if I ever try to,” he added, chuckling.

“Quite right too!”

“I hope you the man I saw you with isn’t trying to dictate your life, either,” he said, his brotherly instincts to protect her flaring up.

“Nate? You don’t have to worry about him. He’s a really good man.”

“And who is he to you, exactly?” he asked, even though he noticed the rings on her finger.

“He’s my husband,” she replied, the word still sounding foreign to her ears. “What about you? Are you married?” she asked, eager to get to know her brother again.

“There’s someone,” he said, hesitantly.

“Is it serious?” she asked, feeling that he needed a bit of prompting to tell her more.

“Pretty serious. We’ve been dating for the past two years, and we’re thinking about moving in together. That would mean moving to New York, for me, so you can appreciate why we’re taking our time.” He paused, knowing that he stalled long enough, and that he had to say it now. “His name is Will.”

“I’m happy for you!” Sophie said, smiling genuinely at him. “I’d better meet him soon, alright?”

“Fine,” Paul replied, before being engulfed in his sister’s arms.

He had apprehended her reaction; he might have known her, once, but she wasn’t the young woman who had left their home anymore. He had had no idea as to what she might say. He was relieved that she was happy for him. He guessed he should have known, with all her worries about him accepting her for who she was, that she would accept him for who he was, too.

“So what about moving here,” she asked as she released him.

“About a year and a half ago, Will got a promotion at work that led to him moving here. He works at Wall Street,” he clarified. “Since then, one of us crosses the great pond every other month, but we’re getting tired of it.”

“It’s understandable,” Sophie replied. “Well, know that if you decide to move here, I’ll be there, too.”

“It’s certainly an incentive,” he admitted with a smile.

“And what about your job? You’ll find something here?”

“Actually, that would be the easiest part. I work as a journalist in a magazine, and when I told my editor, who’s also a close friend, about this, he offered me a couple of pages every month to talk about life in New York.”

“That’s great, Paul! Now, come on, let’s sit. I want to know everything about your life since I left. I mean, if you want to tell me. You don’t have to…”

“Do you have a couple of hours?” he replied, interrupting her rambling as he took a seat beside her.

 

###

 

Sterling was on the phone with Agent Casey by the time he and Nate entered the theatre. He instructed her to go get Olivia from her school, and hang up after saying that he would call her with a rendezvous point. He didn’t need to say more for the other Interpol agent to understand that there was something go on.

They entered the auditorium to find Sophie sitting with a man they had never seen before. After the phone call they had just received, they could only come to one conclusion: whoever this man was, he was working for Ian Blackpoole.

“Sophie! Get away from him,” Nate shouted as they rushed to her side.

“Nate?” Sophie said, surprised at his outburst.

“Get away from him, Sophie,” he repeated, tugging on her arm, but she resisted.

“What has got into you?” she replied, starting to get annoyed at her husband’s attitude; she had told her brother that he was a good man, and there he was, acting like a complete jerk.

“He’s right, Sophie,” Sterling intervened. “You don’t know who this man is.”

“I know perfectly who he is!”

“You don’t…” Nate started but she interrupted him.

“He’s my brother!” she said forcefully, hoping that it’ll make its way through his brain. She turned towards Paul, apologetic. “I’m sorry, I don’t know…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said; he started to think that something might have happened for the two men to act like that.

For their part, the two ex-insurance investigators had been silenced by Sophie’s revelation. After Blackpoole’s phone call, it had been easy to jump to conclusion as to who the stranger sitting beside Sophie could be. They had obviously been wrong.

“I’m sorry, Sophie,” Nate said, knowing that he had to apologize.

She nodded before turning towards Sterling. He might have been calmer than her husband, but she still waited for an apology from him, too. He didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. Neither did she. He finally gave up after a while, knowing that she wouldn’t budge; Nate had married a really stubborn woman.

“Alright. I’m sorry, too.”

“Good. Paul, I want you to meet my husband, Nathan Ford. And this is James Sterling, a friend,” she said, thinking that he’d be easier than to try describing to her brother their relationship with the Interpol agent. “And this is my brother, Paul.”

“Nice to meet you,” Paul said, shaking the other men’s hands.

“Likewise,” Nate replied, before turning towards Sophie. “Your brother?”

“ _My_ brother.”

Nate was surprised by this revelation, to say the least. During their trip to London, Sophie had told him about her mother and her aunt, had even gone as far as to take him where they were living, but she had failed to mention the existence of a brother, or any other sibling for that matter. He wanted to ask her about it, but he would wait until they were alone. He had no idea how much her brother knew about her current life, and he didn’t want to reveal anything that Sophie wanted to keep to herself. But Nate did notice that the younger man hadn’t been surprised when he called her Sophie, and he deduced that Paul must be aware of at least part of her life.

Sterling, on the other hand, had no such qualms.

“Paul… I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your last name,” he said, fishing for answers.

“Just Paul,” Sophie said, before her brother could even open his mouth. “That’s all you need to know.”

“You know, one day, I will find out your real name,” he promised.

“Good luck with that. Even Nate still doesn’t know.”

“You don’t know the real name of the woman you married?” Sterling asked, incredulous; he had always thought that Nate knew that one detail that had always escaped him.

“It doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?” Nate replied, referring to the fact that she had officially changed her name to Sophie Devereaux – now Ford -, something Sterling knew.

“Now, why don’t you start explaining yourselves?” Sophie demanded, looking at the two men. “Why did you barge in here and start shouting? And what are you still doing here?” she asked, turning towards Sterling. “I thought you had finally left.”

“Well, I was about to, but something came up.”

“What? What’s going on?”

“I got a phone call. Blackpoole.” He paused, searching his words, trying to break the news to her gently, but there was no other way to say it. “He has Parker, Hardison and Eliot.”

“What do you mean, ‘he has them’?” Sophie asked, before she realised what had happened. “What does he want?”

“To make us pay. To get his revenge. He didn’t say. But whatever it is…”

“We’d better get them back before he put his plan into motion,” she finished for him. “And we can’t stay here.”

“He was probably the one watching you,” Sterling added.

“No, that was Paul,” she said, gesturing to her brother. That was when she remembered his presence. “Paul…”

“You’ll explain everything to me later,” he replied with a smile. “If you want to, of course.”

“I will. But in the meantime, you should probably leave,” she told him and he nodded.

“On the contrary, he should stay.”

“Sterling… Now isn’t the time.”

“He’s right, Sophie. Blackpoole knew Sterling was with me even though he didn’t say a word. He has someone watching us. If he noticed your brother at any time…”

“He might be in danger,” Sophie understood. She blamed herself for putting her brother in a dangerous situation; this was why she had chosen to stay away during all those years. She turned towards him with a worried look on her face. “You’ll have to come with us. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Truth be told, I think I’d rather be with you and know that you’re safe,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I’ll just call Will and tell him I’ve met up with old friends, and I’ll spend the next few days with them. He’s leaving tonight for a conference in Chicago, anyway. He won’t miss me. Better yet, I’ll tell him I’ve found you. He’ll be less suspicious and ask less questions I won’t be able to answer.” As he saw that she was still worried about him, he tried to reassure her. “I know it might be dangerous. I can deal with it.”

“You don’t know a thing about the world you’re about to step in,” she warned him.

“Then you’ll translate it for me, sis. I may not be like you, but I’m resourceful, too. And there’s no choice. So stop being sorry and be prepared to be cheerful because, knowing Will, he’ll want to talk to you.”

“Alright,” she replied; he was asking her to act and, during a con, she was a great actress. It was time to show him.

“You’ll call him from the car,” Nate said, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket. He noted something on it and handed it to Sterling. “This is the address of the safe house. Go get Olivia and meet us there. Make sure you’re not being followed,” he reminded him although it wasn’t necessary.

“You have a car,” Sterling asked, memorizing the address, before burning the piece of paper.

“I’ve arranged for one.”

“Good,” Sterling replied, moving towards the doors. He stopped before pushing them open. “And Nate? Be careful.”

The Mastermind nodded in reply, and watched as Sterling left the room. He then motioned for Sophie and Paul to follow him backstage. The door there led to an alley. A running car was waiting for them at one end. They walked towards it. Nate opened the passenger door and got in the car, leaving the backseat to the reunited siblings.

The car drove off as soon as the doors were closed, and Sophie looked at the driver only to see the last person she expected behind the wheel.

“Cha0s! Nate, what is he doing here?”

“Oh, and I thought you’d be happy to see me,” Cha0s replied. “My usual fee plus expenses?” he said to Nate who nodded. “And Sophie dressed as…”

“Not happening,” Nate interrupted him before Sophie could say anything. “I’ll turn a blind eye if you want to help yourself to Blackpoole’s funds, but that’s all. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it. But really, the look on Hardison’s face when he realises that I’ve saved him would have been payment enough,” he added with a grin. “Now, who’s that guy? A redshirt?”

“I’m Paul, and it’s all you need to know,” Sophie’s brother replied, having had a feeling that she wouldn’t want Cha0s to know about their relationship.

“Right. So, where to, boss?” he asked Nate.

“Keep driving. I’ll give you directions.”

The atmosphere in the car was tense. They all knew that they were just at the beginning of a long road that would bring them to Blackpoole.

Sophie was worried about Nate; his face was unreadable, even to her. But she knew that this time, Blackpoole wouldn’t just lose his job and his assets. Whatever plans Nate was coming up with in his head, she knew that they would all come up to one thing: the end of Blackpoole.

She just hoped that it wouldn’t mean the end of Nate, too.

 

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

Parker slowly came back to consciousness. Her head was hurting. Her whole body was hurting and she couldn’t remember why. She groaned. She tried to bring a hand to her head but quickly found out that she couldn’t. Her hands were handcuffed behind her back and she was chained to the wall she was lying against.

She immediately became alert and opened her eyes. Darkness greeted her. For a second, she thought she might be blindfolded, but she couldn’t feel anything against her face. The room itself was completely dark: there were no windows, no source of light on any kind.

Feeling at a disadvantage in a lying position, she sat up, using the wall as leverage. She soon realised that, just like her hands, her feet were also tied at the ankles. She tried to move them to loosen the ropes, but it was to no avail; it was tight, and she wouldn’t be able to untie herself without her hands.

There was nothing else for her to do but think about her situation. She closed her eyes – there was no point in keeping them open, after all – and tried to remember what happened before she lost consciousness.

She remembered the con they had been working. She and Eliot had been talking to the CFO of I.S.B. when Hardison had urged them to leave. They had later realised that they had fallen into a trap, made especially for them, but Parker had refused to back down. They had decided to confront their client, but before they could make it there, the van had been pushed off the road and they had ended up hitting a tree.

She remembered the back doors opening and being tasered. She also remembered the faces of the men who had come for her. And this time, she could remember where she had seen them before.

“Blackpoole,” she whispered to the darkness surrounding her.

She had recognized them to have been part of the crew Blackpoole had sent after them, a few years ago. It looked like some had stayed faithful to him after he lost his position at I.Y.S. and might have seen it as an opportunity to get their revenge on the team.

And they succeeded.

Now that she thought about it, she didn’t really know why it was Blackpoole’s name that had jumped to her mind. After all, Sterling had been the one going after them at the time. But they had come to a truce with the now Interpol agent; they were more or less on the same side, nowadays. He wouldn’t do something like that, and risk losing Nate’s trust once and for all. But Blackpoole would. He had nothing to lose. They had robbed him of everything, and they should have known that he would come back and get his revenge on them. He wasn’t the first one to try, after all.

She had figured out how and why she was here. Now, she needed to find her way out and to find Hardison and Eliot. She hoped that, just like her, they had only been rendered unconscious and not worse. She tried to push that last thought from her mind, but it kept coming back. She kept imagining their lifeless bodies lying in a room resembling the one she was in.

It was her fault they were in this situation. She had pushed to continue on the con instead of backing off and disappearing for a while. She had foolishly thought that she could keep them safe the way Nate did, for years. But she wasn’t him; he might have trained her to take his place as the Mastermind of the team, but she was far from being his equal. More often than not, she still felt like the Thief trying to play the Mastermind. And it might end up costing Hardison and Eliot their lives. She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if that happened. She had to save them.

But before she could do that, she needed to save herself. And for that, she needed to get rid of those pesky handcuffs and the ropes restraining her feet. The latter would be child’s play once she got her hands free. Usually, it wouldn’t take her long, but she didn’t have her lock picks and her head was still throbbing. Being handcuffed to the wall also limited her movements. Were she in any hurry, she wouldn’t think twice about dislocating one of her thumbs, but she’d rather keep this solution as a last resort, today. It hurt and she might need full use of both of her hands later on.

She would find another way. She would free herself and find Eliot and Hardison. And all that before Blackpoole could set into motion the plan he had for them. Whatever this plan was, she knew one thing: it wouldn’t end well for them.

 

###

 

Eliot was hurting everywhere. He had woken up with a start only to realise that he was hanging from the ceiling, his arms held above his head. His feet were bound together but were still touching the ground. From experience, he knew that it might not last long. When he looked up, he saw a pulley system which would allow his captors to lift him several feet off the ground. There was nothing else in the brightly lit room, nothing that could serve to tell him where he was, or why he was here. Nothing apart from a security camera on the wall facing him, its blinking red dot showing that it was recording his every moves.

He couldn’t remember much after his head hit the headboard. He vaguely heard the doors opening, but before he could open his eyes, he had been incapacitated. Whoever had been in that car obviously knew that it’d be better for them if he was unconscious.

Which brought him to the next questions on his list: who were these men and who were they working for? He had no doubt that it was linked to the job they had been working on. It would be too much of a coincidence if it had nothing to do with the wall they hit while investigating I.S.B.. But aside from that, he had no idea as to his captors. The one thing he was sure of was that it was someone from one of their past jobs. Whoever they were knew how the team worked and what would prompt them to take a job without a second thought. They had also known that they wouldn’t be easily deterred once they realised that the job was nothing but a trap designed for them. He had dozens of names that would fit the bill running in his head, but none jumped out. Anyone they had been up against could be behind this.

Figuring out who was his captors wouldn’t help him to free himself, anyway. He looked up at his handcuffed hands. He wouldn’t be able to get rid of them, at least, not without the lock pick he didn’t have. Unhooking his handcuffed hands from the chain holding them up could be easier. He had done it before, in another life; he would just have to pull himself up. A big enough bounce should free his hands from the hook. Not one to ponder much once a plan is decided on, Eliot swung his legs up but he didn’t manage to free his hands. Resting his feet back on the ground, he looked up to consider the hook once more; it fit almost perfectly the chain link of the handcuffs, as if it was made especially for them. With everything that had happened so far, Eliot wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. If they knew him like he suspected, they would know his moves and would have made sure that nothing he tried would work.

He had to change his way of thinking if he wanted to free himself and find Parker and Hardison.

Eliot realised at that moment that he hadn’t spared a thought to the other two members of the team before now. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about them – quite the contrary –, but to help them, he needed to get out of here, first. Handcuffed in this room, he couldn’t do anything for them. He didn’t even know where they were. Maybe they were close by, maybe they had been taken far away from him; he wouldn’t know until he left the room. He didn’t even want to think that there was another possibility. He didn’t want to think, even for one second, that they might lying dead, somewhere. He had to believe that, just like him, they were of some use to his captors, and they were still alive.

He knew that, under the right circumstances, Parker could save herself but Hardison… The Hacker had never wanted to learn how to fight, despite Eliot telling him that it was for his own safety. The others, and Nate first, had never insisted that Hardison learnt at least some basic self-defence moves, and Eliot now wished that he had pushed harder and left him no choice but to learn how to defend himself. And now, it would be up to Eliot to find and save him.

“Dammit Hardison,” he mumbled.

Once they were safely back at the brewery, the Hacker would learn some basic moves, whether he wanted it or not, Eliot would make sure of that. Now, to get out of here.

If he couldn’t use his preferred methods, he had to think differently, and take a page out of his friends’ books. Hardison would use computers and hacking programs, but Eliot had nothing like that at his disposal. And anyway, it wouldn’t have been of much help; he doubted that a computer would be able remove his handcuffs. Sophie and Nate were likely to use their minds and their skills at manipulating people to do their own bidding in such a situation. He wasn’t as good as them, but he could hold his own. But he was alone, and if they knew him and the team at all, like he suspected, his captors wouldn’t be easy to manipulate. It left him with Parker. The Thief would easily pick the lock of the handcuffs, and it would certainly be the easiest way to free himself. He had no lock picks at his disposal to do so, so he would have to find a substitute. His captors probably wouldn’t have left anything on his person that would fit and, even if they did, it wouldn’t have been easy for him to reach it with his hands secured above his head.

He was stuck where he was, for the moment. He was at the complete mercy of his captors. Eliot looked directly at the security camera and smirked.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he said, challenging them.

 

###

 

Hardison walked around the room holding onto the wall for support. His left ankle hurt, he must have twisted it when they hit the tree, or when he was yanked from the car by whoever put him in there. He didn’t know. The last thing he remembered before waking up here was hitting a tree as Eliot had told him to and his head hurting the door window. There was now a huge bump on the side of his head, but thankfully it hadn’t bled. He didn’t think his captors would have taken the time to treat his wound if it had.

Tired, and his ankle hurting so much he didn’t think he could take another step, Hardison let himself slide down the wall opposite the door. He wished that it would open to admit Eliot and Parker. He didn’t know whether it was a good thing that they weren’t with him. Maybe they had managed to escape and were on their way to rescue him, now, or maybe they were just held in another room. He didn’t want to think about the third possibility. He didn’t want to think that they might still be in the van, lying lifeless. Eliot had been sitting beside him on the passenger seat, with his seatbelt on, so he had to fine. But Parker… She had locked herself in the back on the van, to protect them. He had heard her body hit the walls as they drove through the trees. He closed his eyes tightly, but all he could see was her lifeless body lying on the floor of the van.

He opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Parker had to be fine. It sounded cliché, even in his head, but he knew that she was the one for him, and he didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t have her in his life anymore. She challenged him constantly, and he needed that, even though he didn’t realise it before. She made him want to be better for her. Eliot would probably roll his eyes at him if he heard his thoughts right now, but it was the truth. He needed her much more than she needed him. Parker would be fine and, once they were out, he would happily go base jumping with her. He would scream like a girl, probably even cry and beg for death to take him quickly, but he would go, if it meant that she was alive and well.

Before he could do that, though, he needed to find a way out of here. It was easier said than done; the only door was locked, and the window had bars on it. There would be no escaping by these two issues. He had noticed a vent on one of the walls, and it might be the solution. The security camera trained on him prevented him to check this option out, though. He had walked by it earlier, but he hadn’t been able to pause long enough for fear that they would notice and stop him before he could do anything. He wished he could have sit before the vent, but it would have been too suspicious. They would have kept a close eye on him if he had. As it was, he didn’t even risk looking directly at it. He could see it from the corner of his eye, but he resisted turning his head. They would undoubtedly follow his line of sight, if he did.

He knew he was probably being paranoid but, with people watching his every moves thanks to the security camera, he couldn’t help it. He needed to disable the camera if he wanted to find a way out of here. Without his laptop, he couldn’t just run a program that would loop the feed; that would have been easier. There was only one option that was offered to him right now: he had to yank the cables connecting it to the screens. He had to time it perfectly, because he would need to leave the room before they could come in and stop him. He knew that, if there was someone right behind the door, he would lose his one and only chance to get out of there by himself.

And he had to get out of here. He had to find Parker. He had to see for himself that she was alive and well.

Rolling his head from side to side, as if he had a sore neck, he chanced a glance at the vent. It was the second difficulty he would have to overcome. Parker wouldn’t be here to help him overcome his claustrophobia, this time. He would be alone in a dark, narrow air ducts. He would be able to move – and move he would have to, and fast – but he didn’t know how long he would be trapped in there, nor even if there was a way out. The rational part of his mind told him that there would be several, leading to other rooms, but it wasn’t loud enough to squash his fears. His heartbeat quickened, his palms started to sweat; anxiety was getting the better of him. Looking straight ahead of him at the door, he took a deep, calming breath, and brought back the words Parker had told him that time to the front of his mind.

_“I know you can do this.”_

She always had more faith in him than he does in himself. At least, in this kind of situation. She always believed that he could do more than he thought, that he wasn’t just a hacker and a passable grifter. Sometimes, he wished that he could see himself with her eyes; he still wondered what she could see in him, but he was glad that she saw past the geek that he was. Feelings weren’t something that came easily for Parker, far from it. She had learnt to open up and talk about her feelings since they had first met, just like he had learnt to be better around other people.

Once he found her, he would tell her that, just as much as she needed him, he needed her. But first, he had to get out of there using the air ducts. Just thinking about it, his anxiety came back.

 _“Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Good,”_ he could hear Parker say in his mind.

Hardison concentrated on the memory. He would take his time before putting his plan into motion. There was no use in diving in there head first if he got stuck inside because his claustrophobia got the better of him. Better wait and think about Parker and what she had taught him the day he was buried alive. But then, he would be ready to go and he wouldn’t stop until he found Parker and Eliot.

 

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parker's words at the end of the chapter aren't, of course, mine, but come from the season 4 episode "The Grave Danger Job".


	3. Chapter 3

Sterling tried his best to stay within the speed limits – there was no point in attracting attention, now – but he still made it to the rendezvous point with Olivia and Casey in record time. He put that down on his fear that Blackpoole would get to her before he could, even though the rationale part of his mind knew that his former boss wouldn’t try anything just now. He might have abducted Parker, Hardison and Eliot, but right now, it was a psychological warfare; Blackpoole had wanted to let them know that he could get to them whenever he wanted, even without them being aware of it.

Sterling had foolishly thought that Olivia would be safe, now that Livingston couldn’t hurt her anymore. He had always thought that none of the enemies he made during his time with I.Y.S. and now with Interpol could get to her. He had been too confident and now Olivia might be in danger because of him. Once this was all over and Blackpoole was dealt with, once and for all, he would up the protection around his daughter. She might not like it, she might even be reminded of the time she had spent with her step-father, but he needed to know that she was safe.

Agent Casey and Olivia got out of the car when they saw Sterling pulling up beside them. The teenager, having understood that something was going on or Agent Casey would have never pulled her from school, ran to her father. His arms wrapped tightly around her; he needed to remind himself that she was safe, and that he would do everything to keep it that way from now on. Sterling caught Casey’s eyes over Olivia’s head, and he saw that she was worried. And she wasn’t the only one.

“What’s going on, Dad? Why did Agent Casey came to get me from school?”

“I just need you to be with me, right now.”

“But why?”

“A ghost from the past might try to hurt you to get to me. I need to know that you’re safe with me.”

“Is it…?” she started, but he was quick to reassure her.

“No, it’s not Livingston. _He_ can’t hurt us anymore.” He kissed Olivia’s forehead before gathering her in his arms once more. “Thank you, Agent Casey.”

“No need to thank me,” she replied. “How can I help you?”

“You can’t.”

“But sir…”

“It’s something I have to do myself,” he interrupted her. “You can’t get involved.”

He didn’t mention that he would probably break the law a couple of times before it was all over, and he’d rather not implicate a good agent in it.

“Are you certain?” Agent Casey tried again.

“I am. Go back to the office and cover for me, please. And stop worrying,” he added when that look wouldn’t leave her face. “I have help from the bests.”

Sterling didn’t need to say more for her to understand who he meant and, in a way, it did reassure her. She had read enough files on Nate and Sophie to know that they were indeed amongst the bests in their field. Whatever was going on – and she did hope that she would get an explanation by the time it was all over – she guessed that Sterling would have the best people around him and that she would see them safe and sound in a few days.

Casey nodded and turned away from the father and daughter to go back to her car.

“Wait,” Sterling called her back. “Olivia, give your phone to Agent Casey, please,” he told his daughter, before handing out his own cell phone. “Don’t lose them. We’ll need them back when it’s all over.”

“I won’t,” she replied, smiling.

Nodding one last time, she climbed back into her car, and drove away.

Sterling opened the passenger door of his car to Olivia, before making his way to the driver’s seat. He turned on the ignition and drove away. It wasn’t until they were back in the dense New York traffic that he finally spoke.

“We need to ditch this car before going to a secure location.” When she didn’t reply, he chanced a glance at her, and saw that she was scared. “It’s going to be alright, darling. Everything is going to be alright. As long as I’m alive, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“I know that, Dad,” she replied. And she did; she knew her father would always do his best to protect her from any danger. “Who’s after us?” she asked, needing to know, to put a name to this danger she seemed to be in.

Sterling hesitated briefly before deciding that she should know.

“Ian Blackpoole. He was my boss when I was an insurance investigator. I helped Nate taking him down a few years ago, and now, he wants his revenge.”

“Why did you take him down?”

Sterling knew that it wasn't his story to tell. It was Nate's but he wasn't here to tell it and, even if he were, he might not tell her. The least Olivia deserved was to know why Blackpoole was after them.

"You know Maggie and Nate were married," he said, and Olivia nodded. "They had a son, Sam. He was sick, very sick, and he needed an experimental treatment, but they couldn't pay for it. Nate asked Ian, but he refused, claiming that he couldn't waste this kind of money on something experimental, even for Nate. Sam died, and Nate blamed Blackpoole."

"He was right to," Olivia said, tears in her voice. "He would have been about my age, right?" she asked, remembering the way Nate had looked at her.

"A couple of years younger, but yes."

"It's sad. So, he got his revenge on this Blackpoole guy. But how do you fit in?"

"I was still working with I.Y.S. at the time. His plan involved me, and let's say I was only too happy to help.”

It wasn’t entirely true, but Olivia didn’t need to know that he had chosen to back Nate at the last minute for his own personal gain. And anyway, he had been really glad to get rid of Blackpoole after everything the man had done. Sterling hadn’t known at the time that he had refused to pay for Sam’s treatment, Nate had hidden that from him just like he had hidden it from Maggie. If he had known, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to keep working for I.Y.S.. He knew that, had it been Olivia that Blackpoole refused the treatment too, he would have reacted the same way as Nate. Maybe even worse; Blackpoole might not be a problem now, had he been in Nate’s shoes.

“I love you, Dad,” Olivia said, jolting him from his thoughts, and somehow knowing that it was exactly what he needed to hear.

“I love you, too,” he replied, taking her hand and squeezing it. “Time to change cars,” he said, making one last turn before entering a parking garage.

 

###

 

After what felt like hours to Sophie – but what had only really been an hour top – Cha0s finally stopped the car before the safe house. They didn’t know what they expected it to be, but they, for sure, had never thought for one second that it would be a mansion.

“How come your line of work seems to pay more than mine?” Cha0s complained, looking at the house.

“Try helping people, once in a while,” Sophie suggested, opening the car door, and getting out.

“And what am I doing now?”

“Aside from whining, I don’t know,” she replied.

“You know what…”

“Stop it, you two,” Nate interrupted Cha0s, before it could escalate further. “I know there’s no love lost between you, but should I remind you that we’re all here to help Parker, Hardison and Eliot?”

“Sorry, Nate,” Sophie said, looking and feeling sheepish. “Now, why don’t you tell me why you’ve never told me about this beautiful house?”

“You were away when I bought it, and the occasion to tell you never presented itself,” he answered with a shrug. “I have a few other safe houses around the country, just in case something like this would happen. But none as big as this one,” he quickly added.

“Whatever happened to our agreement? No more secrets?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s twice in a few days, Nate.”

“Oh, so you’re ready to tell me your real name?” he countered, even though he knew she was right.

“Fine,” she huffed. “But this better be the last time, Nate,” she warned him and he nodded.

Sophie knew that it wouldn’t be so; keeping secrets from other people, even each other, was a second nature to them. They were honest with each other, and they did try not to hide anything from each other – Nate more than her, she had to admit – but it would take time for them to be completely truthful. And it was really ironic of her to call him on hiding this safe house from her when, up until an hour ago, he didn’t even know she had a brother.

“Any other batcaves amongst your other safe houses?” Cha0s asked.

“No, and it wasn’t a batcave,” Nate replied.

“Oh, it totally was,” Cha0s said, smiling and nodding towards Paul who was observing the whole scene without saying a word.

“Alright,” Nate said. “Why don’t we go in? We have some work to do.”

He walked up the steps leading to the front door, Sophie and Paul right behind him, and Cha0s a bit farther away, still trying to take the whole mansion in. He did wonder whether working in places like this would be worth sticking around. He didn’t take long to realise that it wouldn’t – Hardison would easily get on his nerves, and even Parker’s presence wouldn’t help it – but he’d make sure to come back here when he parted ways with the team. The team might not be able to use it anymore once they were done with Blackpoole, but he already knew how he could put it to use.

There was no lock on the door, but an electronic one right beside it. Picking a lock would be easy – anyone of them but Paul could do it in their sleep – but getting past an electronic one requesting Nate’s fingerprint and a code would prove to be more complicated if you’re not a hacker of Hardison’s level.

“We’ll add your print and a code for you, too, later,” Nate told Sophie as he pushed in the digits.

“You’d better.”

The door unlocked and Nate pushed it open. On the other side, they could see a large entryway with several doors on each side and a staircase at the back.

Paul was impressed as he stepped foot inside. He and Will might have enough money to afford a loft in the Upper East Side, but it was nothing compared to this place. And to imagine that they would only use it as a safe house! He couldn’t help but wonder how much money Nate and Sophie had made over the years. He knew that the money hadn’t been legally obtained, far from it, but he was impressed nonetheless. They must be very good at their job, not that he doubted it for one second from his sister.

“Let’s go downstairs,” Nate said, opening the door that led to the basement. “Just close the door behind you, Paul. It’ll lock automatically.”

Paul did as he was told before following the others down the stairs. What he found there had nothing to do with the rest of the house. The basement was an open space that had been converted to surveillance room of some sort. A dozen screens were aligned against the back wall, and a large table with computers sat before them. On his right side, there were shelves filled with cables, keyboards, and other electronic equipment that he wasn’t sure he knew the name of. Five desks occupied the rest of the room, and Paul could only guess that they were meant for each of the members of the team.

“It’s almost as good as the batcave,” Cha0s said, going to sit at the computers and turning them on. “Almost.”

“How did you do all this without me knowing?” Sophie said, looking around.

“Like I said, you weren’t here when I bought it. Hardison helped me set everything up in between jobs. By the time you came back, everything was done.”

“But why didn’t Hardison and the others tell me?”

“Parker and Eliot don’t know about this place either, and I asked Hardison to keep the secret.”

“You and Hardison should really stop keeping things from us,” Sophie said.

“That was the last one we had, I promise.”

“There was a time when you weren’t part of the team?” Paul asked his sister.

“I needed a break to find myself again, to remember who I was underneath all of my aliases.”

“Wasn’t that right after I tried to kill you?” Cha0s asked, prompting Paul to turn abruptly to him.

“You WHAT?”

Sophie had to hold Paul back to stop him from running to Cha0s and punching him in the face. She appreciated the sentiment; there were times when she wanted nothing more than to do just that, and from the look on Nate’s face, it was a shared feeling. But it would be counterproductive to hit and probably render unconscious the only hacker they had working with them at the moment. Later though, if Cha0s was really annoying and Paul still wanted to make his feelings known, she might not stop him.

“Listen, she was scary. Still is, actually. But I failed and never tried again. That should give me points.”

“You tried to kill her,” Paul repeated, his jaw set; should Sophie release him now, he would pounce on Cha0s.

“Why does it matter to you, anyway? Who are you?”

“There’s no time for that, now,” Nate reminded them, stopping Paul from answering. “We’re here to free Parker, Hardison and Eliot from Blackpoole. Everything else can wait until after we’re done.”

This sobered up Paul pretty quickly. He might not know the younger members of the team, but they obviously mattered to his sister, and he didn’t want their rescue to be compromised because he couldn’t control himself. He took a deep breath, and nodded to Sophie that it would be fine. She released his arm, but not before squeezing it gently and sending him a smile. He returned it under the watchful eyes of Cha0s who was still trying to guess his identity.

Before too long, Nate cleared his throat, bringing Cha0s’ attention back to him.

“Let’s access the computers in Portland. If we’re to find a clue as to their location, we need to know what they were doing when they were taken.”

“That will have to wait. We have company,” Cha0s said

He brought up the live feed from the surveillance camera set up outside the house. A car was driving up the alleyway and stopped beside Cha0s’ own car.

“Don’t worry. They’re friendly. Most of the time,” Nate added, wondering how Sterling would reacted to the hacker’s presence.

 

###

 

Sterling stopped the car beside the one already parked. He didn’t know whose it was, but he doubted that they belonged to the category of honest people, not if they were, in any way, affiliated with Nate and Sophie. He guessed it could also be Sophie’s brother’s car, but that would mean they would have taken the risk of being followed, and Nate was anything but an idiot. It had to be someone else’s car. Sterling wished that they hadn’t involved another criminal. The list of criminals his daughter was acquainted with was already long enough as it was. He didn’t have a choice though.

Olivia was about to open her door when he stopped her. She turned back towards him, and waited for him to speak.

“Listen, Olivia. I don’t know who they have in there with them, but I want you to be careful around them.”

“I will be, Dad. Don’t worry,” she said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. “Now let’s go. They’re waiting for us.”

She opened her door and got out of the car, quickly followed by Sterling. They stopped by the car, taking in the mansion standing before them. When Nate had mentioned a safe house, Sterling had admittedly thought that they would spend the next few days in a dark warehouse on the docks. A mansion such as the one before him had been far from his thoughts. He wasn’t complaining, far from it; he’d rather Olivia was in this house than in a dingy warehouse full of dark corners. Here, with the kind of surveillance the team must have installed, she would be safe, even if she wasn’t by his side.

“This is amazing, Dad,” Olivia exclaimed. “I wonder if it has a library.”

“It does,” Nate answered from the threshold, having come up to open the door for them. “Second door on your left. You should find something to your liking.”

“Can I go, Dad?”

“Of course, darling.”

“Thank you,” she said to both men as she walked past them.

“We’ll be in the basement when you’re ready to join us,” Nate told her. “That’s the door at the far end of the corridor. Oh, and Olivia,” he called just as she was about to enter the library. There’s a chessboard in there, too. Why don’t you bring it down with you?”

“Promise me you won’t let me win, this time?”

“Who said I did, last time?” he returned, and she disappeared through the door with a smile. “She’s a good girl,” he remarked to Sterling who was standing beside him.

“You don’t need to tell me that. I know I’m lucky to have her.”

“I’m sorry Blackpoole implicated her.”

“Don’t. The only one who should feel sorry for that is Blackpoole.”

“If you hadn’t helped me…”

“He wouldn’t care about me or Olivia, I know. But it felt good taking down that bastard the other time, and it will feel even better this time,” Sterling said with a smirk.

“This time, he won’t be able to get back on his own two feet,” Nate promised, and the other man could only agree with the sentiment; it was time their former boss was stopped for good. “Olivia doesn’t seem too affected by the situation,” he added, bringing back the conversation to the teenager.

“She’s strong. Stronger than everyone, me included, think.” Sterling paused, looking at the door she disappeared through. “I told her. Everything.”

“Sam?” Nate asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“Yes. She needed to know why she’s stuck here, with us. She needed to know why Blackpoole is a threat.”

“I understand.”

And Nate really did. He didn’t like telling Sam’s story, but he knew that, in this situation, it was necessary. There were people involved who had no idea why they were or might be targeted. He had no doubt that Cha0s already knew everything there was to know, and probably more than Nate would ever wanted him to know. Paul should probably know why Blackpoole was after them, and now after him, too, indirectly. But it wasn't a conversation that he knew how to start, especially with someone he didn't know a couple of hours before. It might be the easy way out, but he would let Sophie decide if and when to tell her brother the whole story. He also didn't feel like reliving Sam's death all over again, not when there were lives - important lives to him - at stakes.

"Are we going to stand here all day, or do you plan on finding your team of thieves?" Sterling asked, jolting Nate out of his thoughts.

"You're right. Let's go downstairs."

"So, who did you recruit to help?"

"Cha0s," Nate replied, as if he didn't understand why Sterling hadn't figured it out yet.

"Seriously? Didn’t he try to kill Sophie once?"

"Yes."

"And steal thousands of dollars with your unknowing help?"

"Yes."

"And you still trust him?"

"Oh no, I don't. But he's the only hacker of Hardison's level that I know, so it's not like I have a choice. Unless you know of someone else?" Nate asked, raising an eyebrow.

"There was someone who may give Hardison a run for his money, but she works for the FBI, now."

"The Black Queen?" Nate said and Sterling nodded. "Yes, I heard that they had finally caught her, a few years ago. She would have been helpful, had she still been in business. But she's not, so we have to make do with Cha0s."

"Right. But he'd better stay away from Olivia."

"He will. But just in case, Archie left me his cane the last time we saw him."

"Archie Leach? Parker's mentor?” Sterling asked, surprised.

He didn’t know why he was surprised, though; he should have guessed that their path would cross one day, and, if he was honest, at least with himself, he was impressed by the older man. He might be a thief, but he’s the thief every cop, every insurance investigator, every member of any federal agencies on the planet would love to catch. There had been a time Nate would have gladly arrested Archie, and now, here he was, being friendly with the man and working with him.

“Why would he leave you his cane?"

“It’s a taser, and it was pretty useful against Cha0s, last time. I’m hoping that just showing it to him would be enough if he starts being his usual self.”

“In the events that it isn’t, trust Sophie to use it,” Sterling said as they entered the basement; he knew that there was no love lost between the two.

“Trust me to use what?” the Grifter asked, having only heard Sterling’s last words.

“We’ll talk about it, later,” Nate assured her.

“Alright…,” Sophie said, suspicious; with these two, she never knew what to expect, really. “Where’s Olivia?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Upstairs, in the library. She’ll join us later. In the meantime, let’s see what Parker, Hardison and Eliot were working on.”

 

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I referenced another show in this chapter. Let me know if you recognized it!


	4. Chapter 4

Nate moved to stand beside Cha0s’ chair, and pulled the keyboard closer to him. He opened a new window and typed in the commands Hardison had taught him to enter the system in Portland.

"Don't bother remembering them," Nate told Cha0s. "Hardison will change them the moment he gets back."

"Oh, I'm sure he will."

"We're in," Nate said as they connected to the mainframe in Portland. He pushed the keyboard back towards Cha0s; the hacker would be faster at finding information than he would. "I need you to tell me the con they're currently working on."

"Alright, let's see what we can find," Cha0s said as he started typing. A few seconds later, he stopped. "Oh, that was way too easy. I am ashamed of you, Hardison," he said as if the other man could hear him.

"What did you find?" Nate asked, ignoring the younger man's comment.

"This is what they were working on," Cha0s replied, opening all the files he had found. "They took the job from a Madeleine Wright, Head of the Hope for Children Home. They’re renting a house that had recently been bought by a company named I.S.B. Limited. They want to evict the children, tear down the house and build a parking garage in its place. Now, even I think it’s cruel,” he reacted; his morals might be quite low, but even he couldn’t condone making profits like that.”

“Where are the company headquarters?” Sophie asked.

“Portland, Oregon,” Cha0s replied as he quickly found the information. “And from what I gather, they went there,” he said, as he opened a couple of more files. Hardison was trying to hack into their computers, but from what I see, he was stopped. And they were quite clever about it.”

“What do you mean?” Sterling asked.

“It was like they knew exactly what Hardison was going to do just before he did. It’s like they knew… him.”

“They probably did,” Nate replied. “What else can you tell us about the company?”

“Not much from what Hardison had found. They don’t have that many employees. They employ local contractors for the renovations. They seem legit. From what I see, they had an appointment with their CFO.”

“The CFO, why not the CEO?” Paul asked, this time. The others turned towards him and he shrugged. “I don’t know how you guys usually work, but if I want information, I’d go higher. The CEO of the company. “

“They posed as investors,” Cha0s replied, talking slowly as if Paul couldn’t understand him. “The Chief Financial Officer would deal with them, not the big boss.”

“Right, but Paul is making a point, too,” Nate said. “Who’s the CEO of the company?”

“They’re anonymous. Hardison couldn’t find a name. Ha!” he said, cracking his knuckles. “This is where you’ll see how far superior to Hardison I am.”

Sophie shared a look with Nate. She wished he hadn’t brought Cha0s in for this job. She understood that they needed the best hacker if they wanted to find and save the team, but surely, there was someone other than Cha0s who fit the bill. They had barely been together a couple of hours, and she already felt the urge to slap him across the face. If he continued with his comments, she feared that he would leave the team with a black eye, at the very least. Not that she would feel sorry for him if that happened; actually, she was pretty sure she would feel relieved, even though her hand might hurt like hell later.

Cha0s typed furiously on the keyboard, trying to find the information they were still missing. But, try as he might, he had to admit his defeat; if Hardison didn't find the name of the CEO, it wasn't because he wasn't as good a hacker as him, but because the information was nowhere to be found. Whoever this person was, they loved their anonymity and did everything to protect it.

“Well,” Cha0s finally said after a moment. “It turns out they _really_ don’t want anyone to know who they are.”

“What were you saying again about your superiority over Hardison?” Sophie asked, but before they could start bickering, Nate intervened.

“Now’s not the time,” he said with a pointed look to his wife. “How come you can’t find any information? What about bank accounts? The S.E.C.? Shouldn’t they have a name?”

“They have one, but I doubt it will help, because I checked and that leads nowhere.”

“What’s the name you found?”

“Peter Soderin. This person doesn’t exist beyond the few records that were necessary to create the company.”

“Peter Soderin,” Nate repeated.

The name was somehow familiar to Nate, but he couldn’t place it. He had heard it before, he knew it. But where and when? He didn’t know if he ever met the person, or if he just heard someone mention it. He turned away from the screens, and started pacing the basement. He didn’t pay any attention to the others, he didn’t even notice Olivia coming down the stairs.

The others observed him, understanding that there was something going on in his mind. Sophie and Sterling, more used to the situation, shared a look; they knew, better than anyone, that when Nate was in a state like this, he was better left alone. They signalled for the others not to speak, even though they were certain that, even if loud music was blaring out of the speakers, he wouldn’t notice it.

Nate’s mind was running at full speed as he searched his memories for the name. He had to find a connection, just one connection, to the name, and then he knew all would unravel and he would figure everything out. A name, a word, a place, it was all it would take, but for the moment, it was escaping him. He just knew that, whenever he heard this name, it hadn’t been recently. It had happened before the team, before his divorce, before Sam’s death, before…

“David,” he suddenly said out loud, turning back towards the others, and looking at Sophie. “Peter Soderin. You should have recognized that name, Sophie. Or rather, Jenny should have.”

It took only a second for Sophie and Sterling to make the connection, and it was Sophie who spoke.

“Piero Soderini, the gonfaloniere of Florence, when Michelangelo finished his David. Which means…”

“That I.S.B. belongs to Blackpoole,” Sterling finished for her.

“I.S.B.. Ian Sean Blackpoole. I should have realised sooner,” Nate said, and Sterling berated himself for not having seen it either. “It was a trap. A trap designed especially for the team. He knew that they would never say no to helping children. You said that they seemed legit to you?” Nate asked Cha0s.

“Yes. Up until the children’s Home, they only renovated or teared down empty buildings. This is the first time they bought an occupied building. No one had seen it coming,” he said, as he brought up a couple of newspapers article that related the case.

“Blackpoole took time to establish his company as something good for the area. They work with local contractors, helping the economy. They’re seen as good Samaritans by these people. But it just served to bid the time until he was ready to make his move.”

“Why did he wait so long?” Sophie asked. “And why did he set up his company in Portland before we were even there? How did he know to come here of all places?”

“Because Blackpoole knew we’d come here,” Nate replied.

“He knew you would go after the Black Book,” Sterling said and the Mastermind nodded. “He knew it wasn’t just a myth, and that your little crusade would end here. He’d somehow found out where it was, and he waited for you.”

“He had probably had us watched from the moment we arrived. And then, he just had to wait for the perfect opportunity.”

“Then why wait until we left Portland?” Sophie asked. “Why not act when we were still there?”

“Because I am his target. Parker, Hardison and Eliot are just means to an end. He doesn’t care about them. What he cares about is making me pay for what I did to him. Parker, Hardison, Eliot or you,” he said, looking at Sophie, “are nothing to him. I humiliated him. I took everything away from him.”

“He wants to take everything away from you, too,” Sophie said, her throat constricting at the thought. “What is he going to do to them?”

“Nothing for the moment. He just wants me to know that he has them.”

“And later?” she asked, even though she already know the answer.

“Whatever he wants to do,” Nate said, shaking his head, trying to dismiss the thought before it came, “he’s going to make sure I’m here to watch.”

Without saying another word, he walked up the stairs leading out of the basement, and they heard the door slam a few seconds later.

“I’ll go,” Sophie said, knowing that he wouldn’t want to see anyone else at the moment. “Find us something we can work on,” she ordered Cha0s who, for once, didn’t protest.

 

###

 

Amy slowly entered the back rooms of the Brew Pub, even though she knew she wouldn’t interrupt anything. It had been a couple of days since she had seen the team. The last time she had seen them had been the day they came back. They had an appointment with someone she suspected to be a new client, and that was the last she had seen them. She knew that they could sometimes disappear for days on end but, usually, they at least left her a note. But this time, there had been nothing.

She was starting to get worried. She didn’t know much about the work they did from here, other than they helped people when no one else could, but she knew enough to be aware that there were risks involved. She had seen them come back with injuries before, nothing ever too severe, and they always made jokes about them. It didn’t stop her concerns, and it certainly wasn’t helping her, right now. All she could think about was that the team was in danger. She didn’t know why she came to this conclusion, except that it just wasn’t like them to leave without telling her. To her, it felt like they hadn’t planned on being away for longer than a few hours.

She had refrained from coming into their headquarters until today; after all, she had no business in here when they were absent. But when she arrived at work this morning and saw that they were still missing, she had decided that she waited long enough. She didn’t know what she hoped to find. It wasn’t like they would leave some important paper lying around that would tell her where they went. But maybe she could find a clue. At the very least, she hoped to find contact information for Nate and Sophie; the two had left for the East Coast, but they would want to know if anything was happening to the team, she was sure of that.

As she suspected, there were no paper on the desks, and the screens were off; there was no information to glean here. There were a couple of drawers that might held something interesting at the other end of the room, and she was walking towards them when a voice sounded.

“ _Hey! Who are you?_ ”

Amy looked around, trying to find the source of the voice, but there was no one but herself. Whoever spoke wasn’t in the room with her. She quickly located the speakers, and addressed them directly.

“Who are _you_?” she returned, choosing not to reply to the question for the moment.

“ _I’m the one asking questions,_ ” the voice said again. “ _So, I ask again, who are you?_ ”

“And I won’t answer your question until you answer mine,” Amy replied; she would not back down. “How can you talk to me?”

“ _I’m asking the questions,_ ” the voice repeated, before another voice interrupted.

“ _Stop messing around. She’s the waitress at the pub. And turn on the screens._ ”

Amy heard some grumbling, but the first man obviously did what the second asked as, a moment later, an image appeared on the screen. She saw two men leaning in to look at her, one slightly older than the other, and two other people – a young girl and another man – a bit farther away but looking towards her, too. She had never seen any of them before, but it was obvious at least one of them knew who she was. It worried her, and she wondered for a moment if she shouldn’t just run away. But just as she thought that, she remembered the team; whoever these people were, they infiltrated the system Hardison had installed, and she couldn’t just run and leave the back rooms at these people’s mercy. She might not be a member of the team, but she was ready to make a stand to protect them.

“How do you know who I am? Who are you?” she asked.

“ _You’re the waitress at the Brew Pub, aren’t you,_ ” the older man said. “ _Amy, was it?_ ”

“Have we met?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“ _No, we haven’t. My name is Sterling. I’m a… friend of Nate’s,_ ” he said, still hesitating on the correct term to define his relationship with the Mastermind.

“Are you, really?”

Amy was still suspicious. Anyone could claim to be friends with someone, as long as that someone didn’t deny it. And Nate was nowhere in sight to confirm or deny it.

Sensing her doubts, Sterling decided to clarify the situation, but before he could, Olivia jumped in.

“ _My Dad is telling the truth. They’re friends. That might not mean much to you, but he would never lie about something like that. Never._ ”

“ _Listen,_ ” Sterling said, visibly moved about his daughter’s words, “ _Nate is upstairs with Sophie, right now. I could go get them if you want confirmation. But I can assure you we mean you no harm._ ”

“What do you want, then? How did you infiltrate the system?”

“ _We didn’t,_ ” Sterling said. “ _Nate gave us the codes. Listen, I haven’t the faintest idea how much you know about what they do…_ ”

“I know enough,” she replied. “Parker saved my life.” She paused, hesitating on what to say next, but if they really were Nate’s friends, they should know, and if they weren’t… well, they probably knew already. “They’re missing.”

“ _I had an inkling you had a good reason to be in the back rooms. Yes, they are. The man who has them called to tell us. We were trying to find some answers on the computers._ ”

“I was trying to find answers, too,” she admitted. “But I don’t know where to look.”

“ _I have a better chance than you with the computers,_ ” the younger man in the foreground said. “ _I’m the hacker, here, not you, dear._ ”

“You wouldn’t happen to be Cha0s?” she asked, remembering having heard the name before.

“ _Oh, my reputation precedes me, I see!_ ” he replied with a smile.

“Not really. I just heard Hardison say your name once, and how obnoxious you were. Looks like he was right.”

Cha0s’ mouth was hanging up open at her words, and beside him, Sterling smirked; he liked this Amy. Behind them, the other two were barely containing their laughter.

“ _Enough chit chat_ ,” Sterling said, as he saw that Cha0s had recovered enough to reply. “ _They haven’t left anything around that we wouldn’t find on the computer, I guess?_ ”

“Not that I can see, but I haven’t searched the rooms.”

“ _Don’t bother. Anything they had, they probably took it with them when they left. Anything happened that you remember?_ ”

“I don’t think so. They had a meeting with someone I presumed was their client, and after that, I barely saw them.”

“ _When was this?_ ” Sterling asked

“Two days ago, at around 5.30pm,” she said. “There are cameras everywhere, you should find the video.”

“ _Find it,_ ” Sterling instructed Cha0s. “ _Are there mics?_ ”

“I don’t think so,” Amy replied, thinking about the ruse they had to use to install mics the one time she helped Parker.

“ _It’s alright. We’ll do without them. Have you see anyone lurking around the pub? Or new faces coming in in the days before they went missing?_ ”

“Not that I can remember. We have pretty much the same faces all the time. I can ask the others if they saw anyone, if you want.”

“ _That’ll be fine. We’ll check the security cameras in the neighbourhood,_ ” Sterling said, nodding towards Cha0s.

“ _Oh, you mean, I’ll check them,_ ” Cha0s replied.

“ _Well, what use are you, if you don’t do that?_ ”

“What else can I do?” Amy asked, interrupting them before it could escalate into a shouting match; she had witnessed similar conversation between Eliot and Hardison, although the one between Cha0s and Sterling lacked the playfulness she had seen in the back rooms.

“ _Just do your job as you’re used to when they’re not here. Don’t tell anyone they’re missing or that you’ve spoken to us. I’ll have Nate call you when he comes back down._ ”

“Are you sure I can’t do more?” she asked, feeling useless.

“ _Certain. Thank you, Amy,_ ” he said, before signalling to Cha0s to cut the feed.

The screens turned black before Amy. She was pretty sure that, even though she couldn’t see them anymore, they could still see her. She looked directly into the surveillance camera she could see right above the screens with a determined look.

She didn’t know why she decided to trust these people, even though neither Nate nor Sophie had been here to assure her that they were indeed who they pretended to be. She guessed it might be the same gut instinct that told her that whatever was happening in these back rooms, it was for the good of all, even though they were probably on the wrong side of the law. Or maybe it was the conviction and the truthfulness in the young girl’s voice. Whatever it was, Amy hoped that she hadn’t been wrong. Only time would tell her.

She closed her eyes; she had been right to think that something had gone wrong for Parker, Hardison and Eliot. And right now, there was nothing she could do to help them. She just had to trust Nate, Sophie, Sterling and the others to find them before it was too late. In the meantime, she would do as Sterling suggested, the only thing she could do at her level: she would keep the Brew Pub running and make sure that it was still standing when they came back.

She went to the doors leading to the corridor and looked back one more time before pushing them open. They would be fine, she tried to convince herself.

 

###

 

“Nate?” Sophie called as she stepped outside.

The garden at the back of the house was almost as impressive as the house itself. There were dozens of bushes of flowers and trees lined along alleys. At the center of it, there were benches arranged in a circle. She could see herself living here, if only it wasn’t so far from the city and their theatre. Maybe she could convince Nate to come and stay here a few days a month. After all, the house might be burnt at the safe house after today, so they would have to find a way to put it to good use.

She took a few steps, and saw Nate sitting on one of the benches, his face in his hands. She stopped and looked at him. She remembered seeing him like this only a handful of times. The first time, he hadn’t even know she was here. It had been the day of Sam’s death. She had learnt about the boy being sick through one of her contacts, and she hadn’t known why at the time, but she had wanted to be close to Nate. She had only realised later that she already had feelings for him at the time. She had arrived at the hospital just as Nate was running out. He had sat on a bench and started crying; Sophie had immediately understood that his son had died. She had cried for him that day, standing far from him, wanting to be closer but knowing that it wasn’t her place.

The last time, it had been after his father died. Even though the two men had never been close, Nate had taken the death hard, harder than even he thought he would. At the time, she had thought that she lost him. Thankfully, with the team, they had been able to bring back from the edge. But now, if something were to happen to Parker, Hardison and Eliot, she knew that his demons would come back to haunt him, and she wouldn't be able to save him from himself. She would lose him for good, and the thought alone was enough to make her want to cry.

Chasing these thoughts from her mind for now - she was here to comfort him not to be comforted - she walked to him. He didn't look up at her approach, nor when she sat next to him. She stayed silent, wondering for a moment what would be the best way to break the wall he was slowly building around himself. She knew she wasn't an unwelcome presence; he would have told her if she was. In the end, she decided to pry one of his hands away from his face and to hold it in her own.

She looked at his profile; he wasn’t crying, but she saw the anguish written on his face. He was holding himself responsible of what was happening to Parker, Hardison and Eliot, and there was nothing she could say that would change his mind. She could tell him that the only guilty party here was Blackpoole, but he wouldn’t listen to her. They were in danger, because he had chosen to go after Blackpoole years ago. It didn’t matter that she had been the one to suggest it, with the team agreeing with her; it had been his revenge and now his former boss was making him pay for it.

After a few minutes, he finally turned his head towards her. She still didn’t speak, but she pressed her forehead against his. Her free hand rested against his cheek, stroking it lightly as her eyes locked with his. He turned his body towards hers, and wrapped his free hand around her waist. His thumb found its way underneath her top, resting gently against her skin. With their faces so close, their breath mingled. It could have been a sensual moment, weren’t it for the situation they were currently in. Even when they started to kiss, slowly, but passionately, the fate of the team stayed at the forefront of their minds.

“Sophie,” he whispered, when they broke the kiss.

“We’ll find them, Nate,” she replied on the same tone, trying to reassure the both of them with her words. “They’re going to be fine.”

“I can’t lose you, too,” he just said.

His words didn’t surprise her. The thought had been on her mind, too, but she had tried pushing it as far away as possible. She knew that, if Blackpoole wanted to make Nate pay, he would come after her, too. It was the next logical step in his revenge against the man who had taken everything away from him.

“Stay by my side,” he whispered, before pressing another, chaste, kiss on her lips.

Nate wasn’t just asking her to support him through this whole ordeal; first and foremost, he was asking her to physically stay close to him, for fear that she would be taken away from him if she didn’t. She nodded. It was a promise she could make him.

“I’m not going anywhere. You married me, you can’t get rid of me that easily,” she said, trying to alleviate the mood.

It worked, for Nate chuckled. She liked it better this way.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too.”

It was something they rarely said. They didn’t need to say the words to know what they felt for each other. But today, the mood, the situation they were in, had called for them.

She kissed him, her tongue running against his lips, begging entrance, and his mouth opened. She released his hands to bury both of hers in his hands, her fingernails raking over his scalp. He groaned in her mouth, his own hands bringing her ever closer to his body, until she had no choice but to straddle his waist. It was pure instinct that made her grind against him, and he bucked up in response. She moaned in his mouth at the sensation. Nate found the hem of her top and started pulling it up. The air was cool against Sophie’s skin; her eyes shot open. She reluctantly pulled her mouth away from his. She rested her forehead against his, their breathing laboured. She could feel his erection against her crotch and she resisted the urge to press down on it.

“Sophie?”

“We can’t, Nate. Not now,” she whispered.

And certainly not here, where anyone who came looking for them could see them. She would be mortified if her brother found them in such a position.

“I know.”

She moved to sit back down beside him, smoothing down her clothes. Nate was buttoning up his shirt – and when had she managed to unbutton it, in the first place, and tried to fix his hair.

“Do you need a minute?” she asked, letting her eyes slid downwards. “Or maybe a hand?” she couldn’t help but tease.

“Not. Helping,” Nate said through clenched teeth.

“Sorry,” she replied, even though she really wasn’t and they both knew it.

She stayed silent while he got his not-so-little problem under control and, when he was ready, they walked hand and in hand back towards the house. But she couldn’t resist teasing him one last time.

“Once it’s all over, we’re coming back here and we’re christening every single room of this beautiful house. The garden, too.”

She felt more than saw Nate stumbling beside her, but she had no problem hearing his words.

“You’ll be the death of me.”

A large smile stretched her lips.

 

To be continued...


	5. Chapter 5

Eliot heard the door open behind him. He tried to twist around, but he couldn’t. It didn’t matter; in a few seconds, he would finally know who his captors were. During the time he had been left alone, he had made a list of possible suspects in his head. People he had crossed with a team, and people he had crossed when he was still working alone had made the list, even though he doubted any of the latter was behind this. If they had, they would have taken him, and him alone. At least, he thought so, you never really knew with bad guys.

Steps were coming his way, walking around him. When they stopped right before him, Eliot saw one of the few people he had forgotten on his extensive list.

“Blackpoole,” he growled.

“Hello, Eliot,” the man replied with a smirk.

Why his name hadn’t crossed his mind, Eliot didn’t know. Maybe it was because he truly thought that they had been done with him, and that he couldn’t cause them any more problems. Eliot realised now that Blackpoole’s name should have been the first on the list. If there was one person alive who knew how the team worked and who would do anything to take their revenge on them, it was him.

Eliot felt as if he had failed the team; he should have kept an eye on Blackpoole, just like he should have kept an eye on Dubenich. They wouldn’t be in this situation, if he had. He was the team’s protector, had always been the team’s protector, and he had failed twice at his job. But it wouldn’t happen again.

“Surprised to see me?” Blackpoole asked.

“I shouldn’t be. Rats have a tendency to survive anything.”

“You can insult me all you want, it won’t help you or your friends.”

“Where are Parker and Hardison?” Eliot asked. “What have you done to them?”

“Nothing for the moment. But it might not last. It’ll all depend on one person.”

“Nate,” Eliot said.

They weren’t Blackpoole’s real target; Nate was. It didn’t matter that they had all worked together to make him fall, it didn’t matter that they had first put the plan together without the Mastermind’s knowledge. The only thing that mattered to Blackpoole was that it was Nate who delivered the last blow, Nate who had seen that he was stripped of all of his assets and lost his company. Blackpoole held Nate responsible for everything that had happened. The team was just collateral damage in his revenge against his former employee.

Eliot had no doubt that Nate and Sophie were already aware that Blackpoole had captured them. He bet that the older had gloated over the phone when he announced what he had done to Nate. He could only imagine the state his friend was in, right now. He would certainly feel guilty of the predicament the team was in, even though he didn’t have to be. He hoped that Sophie would be able to bring him back from the edge on her own. He had faith in her, in her love for Nate, but sometimes, the Mastermind had a tendency to close off, and when it happens, even she had a hard time getting through to him. A part of him, even though he would never admit it out loud, hoped that Sterling was with them. As much as he despised the man, Eliot couldn’t deny that he was as smart as Nate. If they worked together, Blackpoole wouldn’t be able to win.

And he told him so.

“If you think that because you’re comparing me to that Dubenich guy who tried to get his revenge on you, let me tell you one thing: he didn’t Nate the way I do. I have the upper hand, right now. I know Nate’s weaknesses, and I intend to exploit them. I want him to lose everything like I did. I want him to suffer.”

Furious, Eliot tried to swing his legs up to hit Blackpoole, but the man was at a safe distance. For his effort, he received a punch in the stomach from one of the goons that Blackpoole had brought with him in the room. He wanted to double over from the force of the blow, but with his arms held above his head, he couldn’t. He glared at Blackpoole who just continued to smile.

“Just wait until I’m free from these,” Eliot promised. “Even your own mother won’t recognize you.”

Fear flashed in Blackpoole’s eyes, and he didn’t cover it fast enough for Eliot to see it. The Hitter grinned, but it felt when, after a nod from his boss, the goon took pleasure in punching him in the face. This time, Eliot spat blood on the floor.

“Keep your strength,” Blackpoole said. “You’ll need it.”

He walked out of the room, his man followed, but not before checking that Eliot couldn’t free his hands. The door closed behind them; Eliot was left alone once more. He had to find a way to get out of there.

 

###

 

Bright light filled the room, momentarily blinding Parker. She saw a form walking towards her, and blinked a few times to clear her vision. She was unsurprised to see Blackpoole crouched before her; she had recognized his men, she had known it was only a matter of time before he would come to talk to her.

“What do you want from us?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he replied. “You and your friends mean absolutely nothing to me. But to Nate… Oh, to Nate you mean the world.”

She tried launching herself at him, but with her hands and feet tied, it was easy for him to stop her. He pushed her back against the wall, and her head hit it hard. She felt briefly disorientated, but she soon refocused on the man before her.

“Take it easy. You wouldn’t want to hurt yourself, would you?”

“Go to hell, Blackpoole.”

“Now, that kind of language won’t get you anywhere, I’m afraid. You and your friends played with me. You thought you were so much better than me, when in fact you’re just thieves.”

“And you let a little boy die!” she exclaimed, her anger getting the better of her.

“I didn’t kill him. He was sick, and nothing could save him.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”

“No, I don’t, just like you don’t either. Sam could have died anyway.”

“He would have had a chance, at least,” she said, thinking of the little boy she had never known.

She knew Blackpoole was right; there had been no guarantee that the treatment he had refused Sam would have worked. Maybe it would have only meant more suffering for the boy. But she wasn’t about to make him happy by admitting it. She settled for a glare, but it only made him laugh.

“Look at you. One of the world’s greatest thieves, and I caught you. When you’ve seized to be useful to me, I should give you to the authorities. They’ll be happy, and there might even be a reward for your capture. You’re going to help me retrieve some of the money you’ve stolen from me. Now, Eliot,” he continued, getting up and starting to walk around the room while she followed him with her eyes. “Eliot might be worth some money, too but I’d rather leave him to some people who’d really appreciate having a talk with him. I’ll let them decide between themselves who should have him first. Hardison, on the other end,” he said, and her glare intensified, “is only a hacker. Sure, the FBI would be happy to finally arrest him, but if he simply disappears…”

“Don’t you dare touch him,” she said, trying to stand up, but her bound feet prevented her from doing so.

“Oh, do I detect something, here? I believe so,” he answered his own question. “Interesting.”

On that word, he turned his back to Parker, and left the room. The lights were turned off and she was in the dark once more.

She was angry at herself for having not been able to contain herself when Blackpoole talked about Hardison. She should have never had reacted that way. Now, he knew that he had something – someone – to use against her, and she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if something were to happen to him because of her. She couldn’t even bring herself to feel relief that the conversation had informed her that both Hardison and Eliot were alive and somewhere close to her. She had to find them, now. She had to get out of here and find them.

But her head was hurting. If she didn’t have a concussion from the crash, she was pretty sure she might have one now from when her head hit the wall. She needed to concentrate, but her headache wasn’t helping. Combined with the darkness, it made her want to close her eyes and sleep. She knew she shouldn’t, though; if she did have a concussion as she suspected, the last thing she should do was sleep. She shook her head – not a good idea when you have a headache, she soon found out – and started thinking about how she could get out of here. She had seen only one door when the lights were on; no air ducts, no other way for her to leave the room. And the door had been locked behind Blackpoole. She would have to wait until he came back to make her move. Because he would come back, if only to taunt her about what he would do to Hardison once he had made Nate pay.

 

###

 

Hardison turned his head towards the door as he heard it being unlocked. He didn’t know what was happening; maybe they were coming for him, maybe Parker or Eliot would finally joint him in this room.

As it turned out, only one man entered the room, and it was a man Hardison had never thought he would see again.

“Ian Blackpoole.”

“You didn’t forget me, like I didn’t forget you. Good.”

“Why did you take us prisoner? Where are Parker and Eliot?”

“Don’t worry they’re fine. I haven’t touched a hair on your girlfriend’s hair.”

Hardison tensed at these words; Blackpoole knew about his relationship with Parker. It wasn’t good. One of the main rules of his line of work was not to let your mark found out about your personal relationships, because if they did, they might end up using it against you. And he had no doubt that this is what would happen, now. Blackpoole would try to get something out of him by using his relationship with Parker. But Hardison wouldn’t make him the pleasure to crack. If anything, he wouldn’t budge, and wouldn’t give anything, even if the other man directly threatened Parker. At the very least, he would try. He wouldn’t give up without a fight.

“What do you want?” Hardison asked, hoping that Blackpoole could hear the resolve in his voice.

“I want Nate,” Blackpoole replied, tired of repeating the same thing over and over again.

“Nate’s gone, man. He’s not working with us anymore.”

“I know that. If he was still here, you wouldn’t have fallen so easily into my trap.” Before Hardison could protest, he continued. “But he being gone doesn’t mean that he stopped caring about you or what could happen to you, does it? He’s not the kind of man who give up on his friends. You and I both know that.”

“He’s not going to fall into one of your traps. He’s smarter than that.”

“There’s no trap. I just want him to know he failed you. Just like he failed his son.”

At this, Hardison sent Blackpoole a dark look. He stood up and started walking towards the man, but a few steps in, his ankle gave out and he fell on the floor. Blackpoole laughed at the sight.

“He won’t fail us,” Hardison said. “And we’ll kick your butt so hard that you’ll find yourself on the other side of the world with nothing left. Nothing.”

“Are you really sure about that? I mean, you left me with nothing the other time, and look where I am now. I have you and your little friends. I have a company that has the support of the local community. I have money, albeit less than before, but that’ll soon change. And look where you are. You’re still a hacker and a thief and you’re in my hands.”

“Not for long,” Hardison promised.

“We’ll see about that,” Blackpoole said as he walked towards the door.

Hardison knew that he had no choice but to make a move. He had to get out of here, find Eliot and Parker and warn Nate before Blackpoole came back. He didn’t think the man’s next visit would be as friendly as this one. His eyes fell on the vent again; he knew it was his only way out. He wouldn’t like it in here, but he would do it for his friends, his family. For Parker. The last thought gave him the courage he had lacked until now. There was only one problem left, he realised, as he looked at the surveillance camera trained on him, its red dot shining.

 

To be continued...


	6. Chapter 6

Olivia and Paul were making their way into the kitchen. She had been downstairs for the past few hours, reading and playing chess with Nate. Her father had encouraged her with a look, and she knew she was keeping the man occupied while Cha0s tried to find information on Blackpoole’s whereabouts. So far, there had been nothing; he couldn’t even find where he had spent the last couple of years. They were all starting to get exhausted, and Paul had offered to make them all some food, as he felt useless. Olivia had decided to help, needing the distraction.

Paul was searching the cupboards as Olivia opened the fridge, expecting to find nothing. She was surprised to find it full stocked with eggs, ham and various vegetables, all fresh. Nate must have someone come every couple of days, just in case of such an occasion. There was also a bottle of white wine and she took it out too, feeling that the adults might need some at one point.

“What about omelettes?” Olivia suggested, holding the eggs out to show Paul.

“Good idea. What else do you have in here?” he asked, looking at the contents of the fridge.

Olivia looked at him as he took out everything he would need to make a more than decent meal. She had never seen him before, and yet, there was something familiar about him. It didn’t take her long to place it, and hesitated only briefly before speaking.

“Are you Sophie’s brother?”

Paul looked up at the teenager, surprised at her question. Not only hadn’t he expected her the question, but he also hadn’t expected her to come easily to the right conclusion. He wasn’t sure what to tell her at first, but she was Sterling’s daughter, and Sophie seemed to trust him. He decided that he could trust the girl, too.

“I am. How did you know?”

“You have the same eyes. And hands.”

“Really?” he said, looking at his hands; he knew about the eyes, but the hands, that was new.

“I just… Playing chess, I usually focus on the hands of my opponents. I have a good eye for them,” she said, shrugging.

“You’re a smart girl. Listen, can we keep that to ourselves? I mean, your father know, but…”

“You don’t want Cha0s to know? Understood. I don’t like him either, he’s…” she struggled to find her words.

“I know. I think so, too.”

Olivia chuckled and was about to reply, when she heard a knock on the front door. They exchanged a worried look, and Paul gestured for Olivia to stay behind him as they made their way towards the door. They could hear voice coming from the basement; no doubt the others had already seen who was on the other side, and were coming up to deal with it.

“My ex-wife? You… you involved my ex-wife?” Nate said as he stepped out of the basement, closely followed by Sophie and Sterling.

“I have a sense of déjà-vu…,” Sophie muttered.

As soon as she heard Nate’s words, Olivia stepped around Paul, and before he could stop her, she opened the door.

“Maggie!” she exclaimed as she saw the blonde standing on the threshold.

“Hello, Olivia,” she said, hugging her briefly.

“Why did you call her?” Nate asked Sophie.

“Alright, first, I didn’t call her, and second, she helped us with Blackpoole. Don’t you think he’s going to go after her, too, the first chance he gets?”

Nate thought about it for a moment, and he had to admit that his wife made a valid point. Maggie wasn’t safe from Blackpoole, either, and it was probably better that she was with them. But if Sophie didn’t call her, then who…

He followed Sophie’s gaze, and the answer was right here in front of his eyes.

“Why did you call her?” he asked Sterling. “Why do you have her number?” He paused, thinking about what he had just seen – Olivia and Maggie hugging – and what his ex-wife had told him once. “Oh no. No, no, no, no. This is not happening.”

“Nate,” Maggie said, sharing a look with Sophie. “Come with me,” she took his hand, and led him towards a door.

“What had just happened?” she heard Sterling ask, as she closed the door behind them.

“Nothing is happening,” she said, turning towards Nate. “James and I are friends, that’s all.”

“He has your number.”

“Yes, we call each other, sometimes.”

“And you hugged Olivia.”

“He introduced us once, and we see each other when I’m in New York, or she’s in Los Angeles. She’s a good girl.” She paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. “There’s nothing going on, but if there was, and I’m repeating myself but there’s _nothing_ going on, would that be that big of a deal?” she asked, needing to know; Nate might be her ex-husband, but she still considered him a friend and she valued his opinion.

“It’s Sterling we’re talking about.”

“I know.”

“I mean, Sterling. We were colleagues, friends. This is… weird.”

“What about Sophie and you?” she countered. “You followed her around the world to arrest her, and she actually shot you once,” she said, gesturing towards his shoulder. “Isn’t that weirder?”

Nate had to admit that she had a point. When he met Sophie, he had never thought that they would end up married, more than a decade later. In a way, Sterling and Maggie’s first meeting had been more traditional… if you were willing to forget the fact that he had been married to her at the time. Still, it felt strange to him to think of his former friend and his ex-wife in any kind of relationship. It wasn’t that it was wrong, it was just that, even after Maggie had admitted that she had been attracted to him, he had never thought that the two of them could be anything more than friends.

“Alright,” he finally said, knowing that she had been waiting for him to speak. “But seriously…”

“I know. Nothing might ever happen, you know, Nate. We’re friends. We’ve never talk about it. I don’t even know if he’s attracted to me.”

“He’d have to be blind not to be,” Nate replied, sincerely. “You’re a beautiful woman, Mag.”

“Always the charmer.” They smiled, before she continued. “How are you doing, really, Nate? James told me what was happening.”

“I’m fine.”

“Nate…”

“I’m fine, it’s fine, Maggie. They’re going to be fine, and Blackpoole will regret the day he was born.”

“You’re not going to do something stupid, are you, Nate? Don’t risk losing everything just to get your revenge on him. Promise me.”

“I promise,” he said, but she wasn’t sure she could believe him. “Olivia knows about Sam.”

“Oh…”

“Sterling thought that it was best she knew why she was stuck here, with us. I just thought you should know.”

“She’s strong. She can take it,” she said, nodding. “So… Who’s that guy I don’t know?” she asked, wanting to change the subject.

“Sophie’s brother.”

“What? You mean, _her_ brother?”

“Yes. I’m still not sure how he has found her. We haven’t had time to talk about all this, yet.”

“Did you know she had a brother?” Maggie asked.

“No. You?”

“No. She’s never told me either.”

“Well, you’ll be able to question her about it, later. Let’s go join the others downstairs.”

“Any news?”

“No. We know that the job they were working on was a trap Blackpoole designed just for them. But we don’t know where he’s holding them.”

“You’ll find out, I’m sure of that.”

“You have always had more faith than I,” Nate remarked as they walked down the stairs.

“No. I just have faith in you.”

As they entered the basement, Nate saw Sterling looking at them, curious about what was going on. He was tempted to glare at him, to tell him to keep away from his ex-wife, but he thought about what Maggie had told him, and he changed his mind. One look at Sophie told him that he had been right to, or he would have faced some serious marital problems.

Nate watched as his former and current wives greeted each other properly, hugging, and he wondered once more how it could be possible that they were friends. And from the look he saw on Sterling’s face, the other man was wondering the exact same thing.

Pushing the thoughts about Sophie, Maggie and Sterling away for the time being, he walked towards Cha0s.

“So, what have you got?”

 

###

 

Hardison was still looking straight at the surveillance camera. Without his laptop, he couldn't create a loop that would make Blackpoole think that nothing was happening when he was, in fact, long gone. He would have to resort to just disabling it by yanking off the cables and hope that he would have enough time to open the grate and crawl into the vent before they arrived to stop him.

Just as he was about to get up and make his move, he noticed the red dot suddenly disappearing. He waited for it to blink back on, but when it didn't after a few seconds, he decided that it was his chance. He had no idea what was happening, but right now, he didn't care. If a malfunction was allowing to escape unnoticed, he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Not trusting his injured ankle to allow him to move fast, he crawled towards the vent on all fours. Once before the grate, he saw that it was screwed shut. Some might have thought that he was stuck; it wasn't as if Blackpoole and his men would have left him with a screwdriver. But these people would have been wrong. He pushed up his sleeve to reveal his watch and turned and pulled on the crown, setting it free to reveal that it was, in fact, a screwdriver.

He smiled and chuckled as he looked at it, before sobering up and starting to unscrew the grate. It didn't take long to remove it from the wall. Even though he knew he might not have much time, he still paused and gulped audibly as he looked at the narrow passage before him. But he wouldn't stop now, not when he had a chance to escape from this room and save his friends.

Taking a deep breath and replaying Parker's words in his head, and started to crawl inside. He stopped just after the opening and turned around to replace the grate against it. He wasn't able to put the screws back on, but he hoped that, if they didn't look too close, it might be enough to deceive his guards.

He turned back towards the far end of the passage. For the moment, he could only go in one direction, but he knew that if it separated in different directions, he would only be able to trust his gut to go in the right one. He started crawling forward, going as fast as he could, hoping to spend as little time as possible in this place. He tried not to think about the walls on either side of him, of the ceiling so close to his head. If he did, his phobia would get the better of him and he might stop right here and there. Parker’s voice in his head was what kept him going. He wouldn’t be able to do it without her, and he would make sure to tell her when he found her. She had to know that she was his strength.

He finally came at what he had feared: an intersection. He had three choices before him; he could go left, right or continue straight forward. There was no indication to tell him which direction was the correct one, and why would there be one? He was in an air duct, after all. People usually didn’t go crawling in there to go through a building. He would have to guess. He looked in all the directions, before deciding to go left. He didn’t really know why he had chosen this one over the other two; it had just been the one that appealed to him the most.

He continued crawling for several minutes. Any minute now, he was expecting to hear other people crawling in the vent, pursuing him, but so far, only silence surrounded him. He wasn’t sure that was made to reassure him. Whether it was because they had yet to find out that he had escaped, or because they were waiting for him wherever the vent ended, he didn’t know.

Another two intersections later – he went straight forward at the first and turned left at the second – he saw a grate on the side of the vent. He crawled slowly towards it, making as little noise as possible. He didn’t know what laid on the other side, but for all he knew, Blackpoole might be there. He stopped right beside it, and leaned to look through the grate and into the room beyond.

When he saw what was on the other side, he grinned. It was a control room, with multiple screens and keyboards. There was no one inside, no one to stop him. It was perfect. Changing positions, he kicked the grate with his feet, and it fell on the floor of the control room.

“Age of the Geek, baby,” he said as he climbed out of the vent.

 

###

 

“Where is he?” Blackpoole exclaimed, as he entered the room behind three of his men to find that Hardison wasn’t here anymore. “Where. Is. He?”

He waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming. No one dared to speak for no one knew how the Hacker could have vanished from a locked-up room.

One the men, sensing that his boss would soon explode, started to look around the room, and his eyes fell on the vent. He walked towards it, and touched the grate and, sure enough, it fell on the floor.

“Sir!” he called. “Over here! He must have left through here.”

“How could he have escaped without any of you noticing?” Blackpoole asked. “How stupid are you?”

This time, no one answered because no one had one to provide. The surveillance camera trained on Hardison should have prevented that from happening, but it had failed. The images had showed nothing. Hardison had been sitting on the floor for hours, occasionally looking at the camera, and his gaze lost into space the rest of the time. He hadn’t moved. And yet, when they entered the room, it was to find it empty. No one understood how that could have happened.

“Go check on the other two,” Blackpoole ordered them.

He stayed alone in the room, his eyes on the vent. How Hardison had managed to unscrew the grate from the wall was beyond his comprehension. He knew the Hacker had been checked for and stripped off of any tools, anything that could have helped his escape. Blackpoole knew because he had been there when the search had been conducted. He must have had a screwdriver concealed somewhere, because the only other explanation was that he had inside help. The latter was a possibility that Blackpoole was going to explore, even though he had hand-picked every single one of his men himself, and he couldn’t see any of them betraying him. No, Hardison must have had one last tool that they hadn’t been able to find. When he was recaptured, Blackpoole would make sure himself that, this time, he had nothing left. But first, he had to recapture him.

Blackpoole walked out of the now empty room, and towards the one where Eliot was held. As he entered, he saw that the Hitter was still hanging from the ceiling.

"The girl is still here, too," one of his men told him.

"Good. Lift him up," he ordered them.

He smiled as Eliot grunted when his feet left the floor. Blackpoole went to stand before him and, without saying a word, he punched Eliot hard in the stomach. Eliot forced himself not to react, not to show that he was hurting. He couldn’t breathe, but he wouldn’t give Blackpoole the pleasure of knowing that he had hurt him. He looked at the other man’s face and saw the barely contained anger; something must have happened, something that hadn’t been planned and was putting a dent in his ambitions. Eliot smirked at the realisation, and Blackpoole wiped it off his face with a punch. Eliot’s upper lip was cut, and he spat blood on the floor.

“How did he do it?” Blackpoole asked.

“Who and what are you talking about?” Eliot replied still smiling; he had been right in his assumptions.

“Don’t play with me! Hardison! How did he escape?”

“No idea.”

And he really didn’t have the faintest idea how the Hacker had done it. Eliot was impressed that his friend had managed to escape from Blackpoole. He wasn’t a fighter, at least not with his fists. His weapons of choice were his computer and his programs. And, unless Eliot was mistaken, he couldn’t have had access to those in the room where Blackpoole had held him prisoner. But he had found a way to escape, and Eliot was proud of him. (Now, that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t force Hardison to learn some combat techniques when they were all out of there. He did need to learn those, and the fact that he had escaped on his own didn’t change that.)

Eliot did hope that Hardison was far away from this place by now. He hoped for the Hacker’s sake that he hadn’t stuck around to free his two friends. Eliot would kick his butt if he had, because even though it would be noble of him to try, he had to warn Nate and Sophie of their location first.

“I’ll find him, and I’ll make him pay,” Blackpoole promised Eliot, before turning away from him. “Leave him hanging,” he said, leaving the room.

The door was locked once again behind him, and Eliot was left alone. He knew this time he didn’t have much time. Hanging from the ceiling, his arms above his head, he knew it might be only a matter of minutes before he had difficulties breathing. And once that started, he wouldn’t have any energy left to manage to escape. Thankfully, he had one trick up his sleeve, or rather in his hands.

 _Quinn, because it was him, checked that Eliot’s hands were still securely held above his head. He barely glanced at Eliot as he left a lock pick in his hands.  
_  
Eliot knew that it was time for him to use the lock pick. Then, he would get out of this room, fight his way out of wherever he was, and have a talk with Quinn. But not before making sure that Blackpoole couldn’t hurt them anymore.

 

To be continued...


	7. Chapter 7

They were all in the basement of the safe house. Olivia was asleep on a bed at the far end of the room, but the others were all wide awake. Even though they had nothing to do until Cha0s find something, anything, none of them felt like joining Olivia in the land of slumber.

“How many people know the location of this house?” Cha0s suddenly said, surprising everyone.

Nate was behind the hacker’s chair before anyone realised that he had moved, and the other followed at a more sedated pace. Cha0s brought up the live feed of the surveillance camera showing a car driving up the alleyway leading to the house. It was a car they didn’t recognize, and they were all on alert when it stopped.

The car door opened, and someone stepped out.

“Hardison!” Sophie exclaimed, as she was running towards the stairs, followed by Nate.

She opened the front door right as Hardison was punching the last digits of the code and launched herself into his arms before he could understand what was happening.

“Hey, Sophie,” Hardison said, hugging her tight against him, the tension and fear of the last couple of days finally leaving him. “Nate,” he said, falling into his embrace when Sophie finally released him. “I had hoped to find you guys, here.”

“What happened?” Nate asked. “We thought you were Blackpoole’s prisoner.”

“I was, I was. I managed to escape.”

“How did you do that? And what about Parker and Eliot?” Sophie asked.

“They’re still there. We have to go help them and find a way to stop Blackpoole for good.”

“We will,” Nate promised. “Let’s go downstairs.”

Hardison nodded, and followed them to the stairs. Nate helped him walk when he saw that the Hacker must have injured his ankle and could barely put weight on it. They arrived in the basement to find everyone looking expectantly at them, including Olivia who had woken up at the commotion caused by Hardison’s arrival. But the newcomer’s eyes fell upon one person in particular.

“What is he doing here?” he said, pointing at Cha0s.

“They needed _me_ ,” the other hacker replied, smugly.

“What have you done to my computers?” Hardison asked, seeing that Cha0s had accessed his files. “Move.”

Not caring about his injured ankle anymore, Hardison walked quickly towards the desk, and took a seat. He started typing, looking for a Trojan horse, a virus, anything that Cha0s might have introduced to his system.

“Don’t worry, Hardison,” Sophie said. “We kept an eye on him at all time.”

“Why did you let him touch anything?” Hardison continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. “I have to scrub everything clean, now.”

“Why don’t you tell us what happened?” Nate suggested. “You will have time to check everything later, but the priority must be Eliot and Parker.”

Hardison’s fingers paused over the keyboard and Nate’s words. When he saw Cha0s, his nemesis, here, all thoughts of his friends had flown away, and he had only thought about the damages the other hacker might have caused to his system. He suddenly felt bad that he had momentarily forgotten that, while he had escaped, Parker and Eliot were still prisoners, and Blackpoole might be taking his rage out on them. Even though Eliot could take it, the thought of his friends getting hurt because of him was sickening. Determined that they wouldn’t have to spend more time than what was necessary as prisoners, Hardison took a deep breath and turned towards the group.

To say that Hardison was surprised to see some of the faces was an understatement. While he could almost understand Cha0s’ presence, Sterling being here wasn’t something he had expected. But when he thought about it, it made sense. Nate and Sophie were now working with him, and given his past with Blackpoole, they had to inform him of what was happening. Given that Sterling was here, Olivia had to be here, too; there was no way, in Hardison’s mind, that the Interpol Agent would have left her out there while he hid away with Nate and Sophie. Blackpoole could have easily gotten to her, if he wanted. They also must have called Maggie, as she had helped them cause Blackpoole’s fall. He would have wanted to get his revenge on her, just like he wanted to get one on the team.

That left him with the one face he didn’t recognize. He had never seen this man before, and he had no idea where he fit in in this group. He couldn’t link him to their previous jobs about Blackpoole, so his presence was a mystery to him, and was worrying him too. They had allowed a complete strange into the safe house.

Sophie, seeing the way Hardison was looking at her brother, spoke up.

“His name is Paul,” she said, gesturing towards him. “He’s safe.”

“Now, who are you that even Hardison doesn’t know you?”

Hardison ignored Cha0s’ outburst and looked at Nate for confirmation, even though he trusted Sophie with his life.

Nate's nod reassured Hardison. If both of his friends deemed this guy worthy of their trust, then he must be. That wouldn't stop him from checking up on this Paul later, but for now, he would trust him, too.

Taking a deep breath, he started recounting his tale.

"I see you know all about the case we were working on," he said, looking back briefly at the screens behind him. "As you must know, too, it was all but a trap Blackpoole had used to capture us. We were on our way to see Madeleine Wright after that botched meeting at I.S.B. Limited when Eliot noticed a car following us. It ended up running us out of the road and into the trees. I must have lost consciousness because the next thing I remembered was waking up in a locked-up room, alone. I tried looking for a way to escape, but the only way out I saw was a vent."

Sophie and Nate both knew that it couldn't have been an option for the Hacker. He was claustrophobic, and the mere thought of having to be in a narrow space must have initiated a panic attack. It was why Hardison's next words surprised them.

"I ended up escaping through here. Blackpoole had come to see me, and even though he hadn't told me exactly what he planned to do with us, I knew we had to get out of there and fast. The only problem was the surveillance camera in the room. If I tried to escape while it was working, they would have easily caught me again. My chance came when I noticed the camera being disabled all of a sudden. I took a deep breath and entered the vent."

"We're proud of you, Hardison," Sophie felt the need to say, and he smiled.

"Parker helped me," he admitted. "Well, her voice in my head did. I don't know how long I crawled in there, and I don't ever want to find out, but I finally arrived above the control room, and then..."

_Hardison let himself slid down the wall, into the control room. With his two feet on the ground, he turned towards the wall of screens._

_"Make more noise, would you?" someone suddenly said, making him jump in surprise._

_He turned towards it, expecting to receive a punch at any moment, but none came. That was when he saw that the voice belonged to no other than Quinn. It was the last person he had expected to see here._

_"What are you doing here?" Hardison asked._

_"Blackpoole hired me for the job."_

_"So you're here to take me back to my room, and beat the crap out of me while doing so?"_

_"I could. Luckily for you, Ford offered me more money."_

Hardison stopped his retelling to look pointedly at Nate, and he wasn't the only one.

"You knew where they were the whole time?" Sterling was the one to voice what everyone was thinking.

"I didn't."

"Then, how did you know that Quinn was one of the guards?" Sophie asked.

"I didn't," Nate said again. "It's an understanding I have with Mr. Quinn since the time he helped us with Dubenich and Latimer. I told him that if he was ever hired by someone who wanted a go at the team, I would double what he was offered so that he helped us instead. It turns out he didn't forget and it served us well."

"Well, we're lucky that Blackpoole didn't know about the fact that he helped us before," Sophie said. "He might have never hired him if he did."

"What happened next, Hardison?" Nate asked, wanting him to resume his tale.

_"So what do we do?" Hardison asked, once he overcame the shock that Nate seemed to have known that this would happen._

_"Well, get to work. I managed to create a loop in your room and in here, but I don't have your skills to do more than that. And hurry up. Once you're done, you're leaving."_

_"Not without Parker and Eliot."_

_"I'll take care of them, but I'd rather not have you underfoot for that. Do what you have to do, and then crawl back in here and get out of here. There's a car waiting for you right outside."_

_"Where are we?" Hardison asked as he started typing, knowing better than to discuss Quinn's orders._

_"Upstate New York."_

_"Great," Hardison replied, thinking about the safe house close by._

_"What are you doing?"_

_"I'm planting a Trojan horse that will allow me to control this computer once I'm far away from here. I'm also deleting all traces of the loops you created, just in case Blackpoole asked someone to check."_

"And when that was done, Quinn pushed me back into the vent, I got out and drove straight here," Hardison said, finishing his story.

"Do you think he managed to get Eliot and Parker out yet?" Sophie asked.

"I don't know."

"If he did, we don't have much time to act," Nate replied.

"What are you thinking, Nate?" Sterling, knowing that a plan was already forming in the Mastermind's head.

"We need to stop him for good. Do you have any idea how we could do that?" Nate asked, and it didn't take long for Sterling to understand where he was going.

"Actually, I do," the Interpol agent with a grin that could only be qualified as evil. "And I'm sorry, Sophie."

"What do you mean, you're sorry?" she asked, looking at her husband and Sterling in turn. "What are you two planning to do? And why do I feel like I won't like it?"

 

###

 

Blackpoole had to act fast, before Nate found out that Hardison had escaped. He might still have Parker and Eliot but his former employee would soon find out where he was holding them.

He took his phone, and dialled Nate's. The other man picked up almost before it started to ring.

"Hello, Nate," he said. "Are you ready to talk about your friends?"

" _What have you done to them?_ "

"Nothing yet. Well, Eliot is a little banged up, but he doesn't seem to know when to shut up."

Nate was breathing heavily on the other end of the line, and Blackpoole knew that he had him, hook, line and sinker.

" _What do you want?_ " Nate finally managed to say through gritted teeth.

"You're telling me that you haven't guessed yet? I thought you were smarter than that," he couldn't resist teasing.

" _Me. You want me._ "

"Yes, I do."

" _And once you have me, you'll let them go?_ "

"They've wronged me, too. I'm not about to forget that."

" _They acted on my orders. It was my plan. My revenge._ "

"So, you're telling me you're ready to sacrifice yourself for them?"

" _Yes,_ " Nate replied without hesitation.

"It might be arranged."

" _Where do you want to meet?_ "

"I'll text you the address. Come alone, or bring Sophie and Sterling with you. I don't care. But be there, or I'll take it out on your friends."

Blackpoole hung up before Nate could reply. He was satisfied with how the conversation went. Truth be told, he couldn’t care less about Parker and Eliot, but he knew that Nate cared about them, and he would use that to his advantage. But if the other man thought that he would bring them to the meeting, he was wrong. The most he would get was a live feed to show him that they were still alive. He wouldn’t take the risk of untying them. He knew all too well what Eliot was capable of. Speaking of which, he knew exactly who to leave with him. After all, he shouldn’t be the only one to have some fun.

“Mr. Quinn,” he called, as he was texting the address to Nate. “I have a mission for you that you’ll appreciate.”

“I’m listening,” Quinn replied.

“What do you say about getting your revenge on Eliot Spencer?”

“I’d say that it would almost be payment enough. Almost.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll get your money. You two, with me,” he said, pointing to the other two men in the room. “We have a meeting to go to.”

“Yes, sir.”

Quinn left the room. Blackpoole was starting to get really annoying with his arrogance. He wouldn’t be sad to see him fall. When Nate had offered to double his fee to help the team in a case like this, he hadn’t made any conscious decision to accept the offer. It had sounded tempting, but depending on the situation, he might have wanted to have another go at the team, especially Eliot. But when Blackpoole had recruited him, he had known that he would be on the team’s side. He had never like Blackpoole, and these past few days had reinforced the negative feelings he had for the man. He might have actually turned his back on the man for free, but he would never say no to a payment.

He walked down the corridors towards the room where Eliot was locked up in. Quinn wondered if he had managed to get rid of the handcuffs by himself, or if he would have to do it for him. Either way, he didn’t care. The last time, it was Eliot who had helped him out of handcuffs, and he guessed he could return the favour, now. He passed by a couple of other guards, and he knew they would have to subdue them to be able to escape. It shouldn’t be too difficult; they didn’t look like they could measure up to him or Eliot, so with the two of them together, these guys didn’t stand a chance.

He unlocked the door, and entered the room to find Eliot still hanging from the ceiling. He rolled his eyes at the sight, closing the door behind him. He looked straight at the camera, knowing that, whoever was in the control room right now, couldn’t see what was happening; Hardison had made sure of that before leaving.

“Come on, that shouldn’t be that difficult,” he said, coming around to face Eliot. The Hitter had his eyes closed. “Spencer?” he called, slapping him lightly on the cheek.

Eliot stayed unresponsive. Quinn saw the lock pick that had fallen on the floor and picked it up. He made quick work of the handcuffs and caught Eliot before he could fall. He lied him down on the floor, and checked for a pulse. It was there, but weak. He was breathing, although a bit too slowly for Quinn’s liking. He cursed; he knew that hanging from the ceiling was not the best of positions, but he had hoped that Eliot would be more resistant. But while he had tried not to really hurt him when he hit him, Blackpoole had no such qualms. It had ended up weakening Eliot.

“Come on, Spencer, wake up!” he said, shaking him and slapping his face harder. “We don’t have all day.”

Finally, Eliot roused from unconsciousness. Quinn helped him sit up as the other man coughed, some blood coming out of his mouth.

“He might have cracked one of your ribs,” Quinn said.

“Maybe. What are you doing here?”

“It’s time to go. Blackpoole is going to meet up with Ford.”

“Hardison?”

“They didn’t catch him, as far as I know. He might have had time to warn your friends.”

“Either way, we’re going too.”

“That’s what I was thinking. We’ll have to fight our way out of here, though. You’re feeling up to it?”

“Lead the way,” Eliot said, getting up. “Where’s Parker?”

“Two doors down, on the left. I’ll go the other way.”

“Don’t get too caught up. We’re in a hurry.”

“Look who’s talking,” Quinn replied, as a guard rounded the corner, and Eliot started fighting against him.

 

###

 

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Sophie asked as they were making their way to the garage.

They were all going, even though Nate, Sophie and Sterling would have preferred if Maggie, Paul and Olivia stayed at the house. But the three had refused to be left behind, and there was nothing that could be said or done to convince them otherwise.

“It will,” Nate assured her.

“Hello Lucille,” Hardison said, as the garage door opened to reveal a new van.

“I’ll drive,” Sophie offered, brandishing the keys.

“No, no way!” Hardison exclaimed. “I have yet to mourn Lucille 4.0, and I’ve just met Lucille 5.0. I don’t want to lose her just yet.”

“I’m a good driver. Aren’t I, Nate?”

“You are. But we’re not in any hurry. Better let someone else drive, for Hardison’s sake.”

Sophie narrowed her eyes at her husband, and turned to look at the Hacker who was looking at her with pleading eyes. No one else dared looking at her, except for Maggie and Paul. She silently begged the former to say something.

“I have to side with Nate on this one,” Maggie said. “I’ve seen you drive, Sophie.”

“And I thought you were my friend.”

“Why don’t I drive?” Paul suggested.

“Et tu, Paul?”

“It’s not like I could help you plan everything, so if I can be useful by driving.”

“Thank you,” Nate replied, plucking the keys from Sophie’s fingers and throwing them to his brother-in-law. “Let’s go.”

They all went into the van, Maggie and Olivia going to sit on the front seat beside Paul. He started driving in the direction Nate had given him.

In the back of the van, Cha0s and Hardison were at the computers, finalising the plan Nate and Sterling had devised to catch Blackpoole. Even though there was no love lost between them, they had to admit that they enjoyed working together on the rare occasion. It was certainly funnier to be up against one another, but having a common enemy was a nice change for once. Still, that didn’t mean they were really cooperating. Each was trying to show the other that they were better, but in doing so, they were ensuring that there was no way Blackpoole could get out of what they intended for him. As long as it stayed that way, and didn’t impede their work, Nate had no reason to stop them. He was actually inclined to commend them for their work at the end.

Nate, for his part, was focused on what was ahead of them. He knew that he had to get this right if he wanted to free Eliot and Parker from Blackpoole. He knew the man all too well, and he had known what I.Y.S., his assets and his reputation had meant to him. It was why he had attacked them in the first place. He had known what Blackpoole would feel if he lost everything. And he had wanted him to feel the way he had when Sam died. It had felt good at the time, it had appeased him, he had even stopped drinking after that job, but now, it was coming back to bite him. Blackpoole had, once more, been ready to take people Nate cared for away from him. It was only sheer luck that he had hired Quinn. If he hadn’t, Hardison might still be a prisoner, and they wouldn’t have been able to set this plan into motions.

His phone ringing interrupted his trail of thinking, and he was grateful. It was a private number, and he wouldn’t be surprised if it was Blackpoole asking where he was.

“Hello?”

“ _Nate?_ ”

“Eliot?” Nate replied, garnering everyone’s attention in the van. He put the phone on speaker. “Where are you?”

“ _We’re out, thanks to Quinn. We’re driving towards New York._ ”

“Is Parker with you? Is she ok?” Hardison asked, before Nate could speak.

“ _I’m ok,_ ” she replied. “ _I might have a concussion, and Eliot is bruised everywhere and might have a cracked rib, but we’re both fine._ ”

“Thank god,” Hardison said, breathing a little easier. “Listen, babe, I…”

“Later, Hardison,” Nate interrupted him. “We’re not in New York. We’re meeting with Blackpoole.”

“ _Have you lost your mind?_ ” Eliot exclaimed. “ _Blackpoole wants to hurt you. He would probably enjoy killing you. Don’t go, Nate, we’re out, we’re fine._ ”

“I have to. He has to be stopped.”

“ _Then tell us where you’re meeting. We’re coming._ ”

“I was counting on it,” Nate said, before giving him the address. “We should arrive around the same time.”

“ _Wait for us, Nate. I mean it. And Sterling, I know you’re here, and if he doesn’t wait for us, I’m holding_ you _accountable._ ”

“Of course, you are.”

Nate hung up, and turned towards Sophie. She took his hand, smiling, relief flooding over her, over them both. Their friends were all fine. She didn’t think she had to worry any more about Nate going over the edge. She knew that they weren’t done with Blackpoole yet, but she could breathe a little better now that Hardison, Parker and Eliot were out of Blackpoole’s clutches. It was one of these times when she really appreciated Nate’s foreshadowing. If he hadn’t had a pact with Quinn, it could all have ended very differently.

Still, Sophie really needed him to stop keeping secrets from her. He did say there would be ‘no more secrets’ between them, but in the past few days alone, she had found out about several of his. And she was certain that there were others he had yet to tell her. She wondered what it would take for him to reveal them. She could think of a way or two to torture them out of him, and she couldn’t see him protesting if she did enact these thoughts. After all, there were forms of torture that were sweeter than others. But now wasn’t the time nor the place to think about it. Especially not with her brother and his ex-wife – even though she was her friend – right here next to them.

“What were you thinking about?” Nate asked with a smile, as if he could read her thoughts; she wouldn’t be surprised if this time, he did.

“I’ll tell you later,” she replied, kissing his cheek.

“Nasty,” Hardison said under his breath so that only Nate and Sophie could hear.

 

To be continued...


	8. Chapter 8

The van arrived at the rendezvous point with Parker, Eliot and Quinn to find them already there. Hardison barely waited for Paul to stop the van before he jumped out of it, his injured ankle forgotten. He went to Parker and hugged her. She wrapped her arms around him just as tightly. They had both been worried about the other, about what Blackpoole could have done to them, whether they came out of the crashed van in one piece. Seeing each other mostly unscathed, they were relieved.

Hardison pulled back slightly to look at Parker’s face.

“Yep, you’re right. It looks like you have a concussion, babe.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Yes, you are.”

In the meantime, Sophie had wrapped her arms carefully around Eliot, mindful of his injuries. He would probably need to see a doctor but, knowing him like she did, he would rail against that. Still, this time, she would insist and she expected Nate to back her up. Seeing her husband’s face, she knew that, this time, he would. He needed to be sure that his friends were fine, and if that meant taking them to a hospital and coming up with a story to explain their injuries without saying the truth, he would.

Nate turned towards Quinn and held out his hand.

“Thank you, Mr Quinn. Your money has been wired to your account.”

“How do you know how much…?” he started before looking at both Hardison and Cha0s. “Right.”

“Would you mind sticking around for a while longer?” Nate asked. “We need someone to make sure our friends here,” he said, gesturing towards Olivia and Paul, “are safe while we finish dealing with Blackpoole.”

“Not a problem. What about him?” Quinn asked, nodding towards Cha0s.

“He shouldn’t cause you any trouble. But if he does, here,” Nate said, handing him a cane. “Archie is pretty sure it’s the taser, but you never know.”

From the corner of his eyes, Nate could see Cha0s blanching at the sight of the cane. He had a bad memory of it, the last time he had seen it.

“Are you sure you want to come with us?” Nate asked Maggie, hoping he could change her mind and make her stay behind.

“I want to see him fall, Nate. I _need_ to see him fall.”

“Alright. I tried. Sterling? Can I talk to you for a second?”

The other man nodded, and they stepped away from the others.

“What do you want? Are you changing your mind about what we’re about to do? Because, let me tell you, it’s a bit late.”

“No, this is what has to be done. It can’t happen any other way.”

“Good. So…?”

“I wanted to talk to you about Maggie.”

“What about Maggie?”

“It’s not easy to say it, so don’t say a word before I’m done, ok?” When Sterling nodded, confused, Nate continued. “She’s probably going to kill me if she knows I’m talking to you about it. Sophie would help her hide my body if she knew. I can understand but…”

“Nate!” Sterling stopped his rambling.

“Right. Back to the main point. I might appear not to be ok with it, sometimes, and truthfully, I’m not sure I _am_ ok with it, but I won’t say anything. You won’t hear a complaint from me. And anyway, as if I could be the one to talk. I married Sophie.”

“Nate, we really need to get back,” Sterling said, even though he agreed to stay quiet until Nate was done. But to him, it didn’t look like whatever Nate was trying to say was going anywhere.

“Alright, what I’m trying, and failing, to say is this: if you want to date Maggie, I’ll be ok with it. Well, I’ll try to.”

Sterling’s mouth opened and closed several times as his mind processed Nate’s words. Of all the things Nate could have wanted to talk about, his relationship with Maggie was the last thing Sterling would have imagined. He wondered what had prompted this talk. Did Maggie say something? Or Olivia? Or did he, without even noticing?

“Why do you think I want to date Maggie?” Sterling said, as he finally found his words.

“You like her. A lot.”

“I… I do, but that has nothing to do with…”

“The first person you called after making sure that Olivia was taken care of was Maggie. I didn’t even think for one second about calling her, and she’s my ex-wife.”

“What has she said to you?” Sterling asked, wondering whether Maggie had put her ex-husband to it.

“Nothing. Well, she did say something, but you’d have to ask her. Without telling her we talked about it,” Nate reminded Sterling who absent-mindedly nodded.

“We should… go back to the others,” Sterling said after a moment. “It’s almost time.” They had started walking back towards the group when he continued. “I don’t need your blessing.”

“I know. And you don’t have it.”

“As long as we’re clear about it.”

“We are,” Nate assured him.

“Good.”

 

###

 

Blackpoole and his two men arrived at the rendezvous point with Nate with a few minutes to spare. They were the first to arrive. He had thought that Nate would rush here, but he had been wrong. Maybe he could have taken his time, too, bring more men with him, but he didn’t think that Nate would be a problem. Even if he wasn’t alone, as he suspected, his two men could more than take Sophie and Sterling. And with Parker and Eliot still in his hands, Nate wouldn’t risk their lives.

“Let’s take a look inside,” he told his men, leading the way.

He opened the doors of the warehouse, expecting to find it empty, but instead he could see dozens of boxes inside.

“What the…?”

He walked inside, and opened one of the boxes. Its contents left him speechless. It was the last thing he had expected to see in his warehouse. He wondered how they arrived here. He picked up one of the items of the boxes to examine it more closely. But before he could do so, the door slammed open and he heard people running in.

He turned around to find himself facing half a dozen people holding guns.

“Interpol!” Ellen Casey shouted. “Freeze.”

One of Blackpoole’s guys tried to make for his gun, but she trained her own gun at him.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

He relented, and he and his friends held their hands up. Blackpoole was still frozen, unsure of what was happening before his eyes. He came here, expecting to finally confront Nate, to make him pay for what he had done to him four years ago, and instead he found himself surrounded by Interpol agents.

“Listen, it must be a misunderstanding.”

“I’m sure it is,” Casey replied. “Ian Blackpoole, you’re under arrest for possession of stolen art.”

“What? No! These aren’t mine!” he exclaimed, gesturing to the boxes. “I don’t know how they came here.”

“And yet, you own this building, don’t you.”

“Yes, yes I do, but they’re not mine!”

“Well, if it’s just a misunderstanding, you have nothing to fear. We won’t be able to find your prints on any of these pieces,” she added, looking at the one he was still holding.

Blackpoole looked at it too and, as it had just burnt him, he dropped it on the floor. One of the agents accompanying Casey grabbed his wrists and placed them behind his back, handcuffing him. He was then led outside, where he was met with cars and even more agents getting out of them. And there, amongst the Interpol agents, he saw them: Nate, Sterling, Sophie, Hardison, Parker, Eliot – and when did they get away – and Maggie. They were all watching as he was dragged to the back of one of the waiting cars.

“It’s them!” he shouted for everyone to hear. “They’re trying to make me take the blame, but they’re the one who stole these and put them here! I’ve done nothing! I’m innocent!”

But no one was listening to him. He was pushed inside the car and the door was shut on him, drowning his cries.

Agent Casey left the warehouse and found the eyes of Sterling, who nodded his thanks. She didn’t know the whole story yet – and she was certain she never would – but when he called for her help, she didn’t hesitate. He had told her what he needed her to do, and she presented the tip to her colleagues and superiors as an anonymous one. And it would stay that way. She looked at the car that was taking Blackpoole away. Whoever this guy was, if he made Sterling cross the fine line that existed between him and Nathan Ford and break the law, he was probably deserving it.

With one last look at them, she turned towards her agents, and gestured for them to enter the warehouse.

 

###

 

They watched as Interpol Agents took artwork after artwork out of the warehouse. No one questioned their presence, nor did they question Sterling’s amongst them, when they had been told he was on personal leave. The agents were much too preoccupied with the contents of the boxes for that.

“I knew I wouldn’t like it,” Sophie said.

“If there had been any other way…” Nate offered.

“Blackpoole loves art. He always did,” Sterling said. “He was a collector before everything collapsed around him. No one would be surprised to find out that he managed to get his hands on some stolen artwork after that.”

“I know, I know. But I still don’t like it.”

“It was for the good of all,” Parker said.

“Hurley did a good job all on his own,” Eliot said. “When you told us that you asked for his help, I thought that we would have had to get him out of trouble. Again.”

“I know. So did I,” Nate admitted; even though there hadn’t really been another alternative, he had still wondered whether asking for Hurley’s help was the right decision. From what he was seeing, it had been. “Is that…”

“The Stanley Cup?” Sterling finished for him.

“Oh, that’s where it was!”

“You stole the Stanley Cup? Did you know that?” Sterling asked, turning towards Nate.

“I did. But she pretended not to remember where she put it.”

“And I didn’t! Until now,” Sophie said.

They watched as more artwork went past them, Sophie pouting every time she saw a piece she liked in the Interpol agents hands.

“Is that a Renoir?” Maggie asked.

“Oh no, not this one. This is one of my favourite.”

“Well, you can always steal back,” Maggie suggested.

“Who are you and what have you done to Maggie Collins?” Sterling asked, while Nate was left gaping at his ex-wife.

“Always the honest ones,” Hardison said, wrapping an arm around Parker’s shoulders.

“I should have been there,” Sophie said. “I shouldn’t have trusted Hurley with these.”

“It’s going to be ok,” Nate reassured her, kissing her temple.

“In the name of Interpol, I thank you for having helped us retrieve all these artworks, Sophie.”

“Stop smiling while they are taking my belongings away from me,” she just replied to Sterling’s ironic words.

“They do not belong to you. You stole them,” Sterling reminded her.

“And I cherished every one of them.”

“Do you want me to tell them that? I’m sure my bosses wouldn’t mind having you behind bars instead of working for us. Less of a headache.”

“Remind me again why we agreed to work with him, Nate?”

“For me. You work _for_ me,” Sterling said.

“Yes, remind us again how you hurt your head and made that decision, Nate,” Eliot said.

“Sometimes, I wonder,” Nate replied. “Come on, guys, we’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?” Parker asked.

Nate chose his words carefully, knowing that Sterling would lose it if he selected the right ones.

“Let’s go break the law.”

“Nate!”

 

Fin.


End file.
